Bolts lose their way again in another loss

by Gary Shelton on October 19, 2022

in general

Stamkos has six goals on the season./TIM WIRT

Wednesday , 4 a.m.

Suddenly, we are no longer Champa Bay. Suddenly, we are Disappointment City.

The Tampa Bay Lighting continued their early-season slump at Amalie Arena Tuesday night. The Bolts blew a 2-0 lead at home, with Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal, to fall to 1-3 on the season.



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Vasilevskiy had a tough night./TIM WIRT

The Flyers came from a multi-goal deficit for the second straight game. They didn't do it at all a year ago.

And the Lightning. Time was, they shut other teams down in the third period. Not this year.

“This is a stinger," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "We should never leave this game with zero points. We probably should have left with two. It happens with this game. Unfortunately for us, it’s happening a lot early in the season. This group should close that game out and we didn’t. That’s probably a little bit of a concern."

The Bolts got two power-play goals from Steven Stamkos, who has six goals of the Bolts' 10 goals this season. But the Flyers whittled the margin away, scoring the winning goal on a Bolts' giveaway with 7:16 left in the third period.

"Look at their bench in the third and there was a lot of life," Cooper said. "Look at our bench and there wasn’t any. Maybe there some expectations that you just throw your stick on the ice and you’re going to be okay.

"We didn’t need any more goals. You have fo find your way to win. That’s what we had to do and we didn’t. We changed the way we played. We started giving up odd-man rushes. We started pressing."

The Bolts' struggles include no goals in four games from Nikita Kucherov, none from Alex Killorn and one from Braydon Point. Vasilevskiy is 1-2 and has given up eight goals.

The Lighting visit the Florida Panthers on Friday night at 7:10 p.m.

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