Depleted Lightning’s Effort Not Enough In Vancouver
The Tampa Bay Lightning, playing without Ryan Callahan, Nikita Kucherov, and Ondrej Palat, not to mention Steven Stamkos, were defeated by the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Friday night.
Cory Conacher, scoring his first NHL goal since October 11, 2014, tied the game at 2-2 at the 3:53 mark of the third period. “It’s nice to get that first one. It would have been nicer if we got the win out of it, but hopefully I can build off that and it’s a quick turnaround for tomorrow’s game.” Conacher said. Hopefully I can build off that and play well tomorrow and hopefully we can win tomorrow.”
Bo Horvart notched the game winner at the 7:46 mark taking advantage of a lucky bounce on a power play. “We’ve had so many bounces that haven’t gone our way this year,” said Horvat after the game. “To get one like that, it was kind of a relief.”
“It’s tough. Actually, it was a nice save Vasy made just to keep it from going in the net. It goes right to their guy” Jon Cooper said. “It looked like it was a rolling puck. He puts it – it was an unreal shot by him – but he was Johnny on the spot on a fluky play. That was the difference. Too bad.”
The Lightning fall to 1-6-0 against Western Conference foes and 15-14-2 overall. The win improves the Canucks record to 13-16-2.
Cooper Quote To Note: Solid Effort Falls Short
“We can’t sit here and say we didn’t play well. They had 10 scoring chances the whole game. They score three goals. You can’t ask our team to do any better than that. Any NHL team will tell you, you give up 10 scoring chances, you’ve got a really good chance to win the hockey game. We’re playing pretty well defensively, a couple breaks here. Unfortunately, some of these turnovers are ending up in the back of our net. In the end, it’s a tough game not to get points out of, that’s for sure.”
Lightning Tidbits:
- Victor Hedman opened the scoring with his sixth goal of the season. It was the first time in their past four games that the Lightning scored the games first goal.
- Hedman’s 24 points (6-goals/18-assist) rank third in the NHL for defenseman behind Erik Karlsson (28) of the Ottawa Senators and Brent Burns (30) of the San Jose Sharks.
- Valtteri Filppula earned an assist on Hedman’s goal to extend his point streak to four games (1-goal/4-assist). It’s his longest point streak on the season and longest since December 28, 2015 through January 5, 2016. He now ranks third on the Bolt with 16 assists behind Nikita Kucherov (17) and Victor Hedman (18).
Up Next:
The Lightning will complete their three game road trip as they travel to Edmonton to take on the Oilers.
