Monday, 4 a.m.
It’s kind of late in the season to bring this up, but the Tampa Bay Lightning should be aware of this about the NHL Playoffs.
Some of the games are on the road.
The Bolts fell below .500 (16-17-3) away from home Sunday night, losing a 4-2 game to the Las Vegas Golden Knights. It was the second loss of the weekend for the Bolts, who gave up 10 goals in losses to Utah and Vegas.
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The Bolts gave up three goals in an eight-minute span in the first period and never recovered.
Tampa Bay gave up goals to Nicolas Roy, Tomas Hertl and Jack Eichel in the opening period. Nicolas Hague later scored an empty netter.
The Bolts scored just twice, a second-period shot by Nicholas Paul and a shot by Nikita Kucherov late. Kucherov scored his 30th goal (and 98th point) with 1.9 seconds left.
“The boys tried,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “The issues for us were execution and the mental side of things. The turnovers popped into our game at some inopportune times. In the end, they’re a very good team. Give them some chances and they’ll bury them.
“Cleary, that start didn’t help us. They got a lead and sat on it. They probably could have played four more periods and still had it.”
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 of 29 shots.
Tampa Bay is home on Tuesday night against Pittsburgh. The puck drops at 7 p.m. at Amalie Arena.