Bolts turn road warriors in win over Seattle

by Gary Shelton on January 17, 2023

in general

Paul scored on a spin-around shot./TIM WIRT

Tuesday, 4 a.m.

Good news: After all of this time, the Tampa Bay Lightning has evidently overcome its fear of room service.

The Lightning, an average hockey team on the road through much of the season, won its second straight game away from home Monday evening, cooling off the red-hot Seattle Kraken for a 4-1 victory.

The game was tight, with the Bolts leading 2-1, until the final moments when Tampa Bay added a pair of empty netters to clinch the win.



Content beyond this point is for members only.

Already a member? To view the rest of this column, sign in using the handy "Sign In" button located in the upper right corner of the GarySheltonSports.com blog (it's at the far right of the navigation bar under Gary's photo). Not a member? It's easy to subscribe so you can view the rest of this column and all other premium content on GarySheltonSports.com.

Bellemare scored the Bolts' first goal./TIM WIRT

The Bolts had been just 9-9 on the road entering this trip, but have now won back-to-back games.

Pierre-Eduoard Bellemare had scored the Bolts' first goal and Nicholas Paul -- on a spin-around shot -- had scored the second. Seattle scored in the third period to come within one, but empty-net goals by Brandon Hagel and Victor Hedman -- only his second of the season -- nailed it shut.

The Bolts are now 28-13-1 on the season.

Seattle had won eight straight games coming in.,

“It’s all about managing the game," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "We didn’t need another one (goal), we just needed to keep them from getting one. It’s not like we sat back.


"We were feeling pretty good about our offensive game, at least the possession part of it. It’s all about 'are you adding risk to your game or not?' It’s like I told the guys ‘you don’t need the third one to win. The third one can come on the empty letter. Lets’ get in position for that to happen.’”

Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy won his 20th game of the season, stopping 22 of 23 shots.

The Bolts travel to Vancouver for a 10 p.m. game on Wednesday night.

Vasilevskiy won his 20th game./TIM WIRT


Previous post:

Next post: