Wednesday, 4 a.m.
It was better, if you care about such things.
But it wasn't good enough.
These days, no one is good enough to go into Boston and play the Bruins, who have now won a league-record 13 games in a row. The latest Boston win was a 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightining.
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.
Even in a bottom-line business, it's easy to say that the Lighthning played better in this loss than in the previous night's win over Buffalo. But the Bolts had a 1-1 tie going into the third period and couldn't pull it out.
That's the bottom line. Games are played on the curve. Losing is losing, no matter the performance.
“We didn’t get any points," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We want to win games. That we held them to two goals {not counting the empty-netter) is probably a little bit of a positive. It's a better showing than we did at home. But in the end, we didn’t get it done. It’s a tie game in the third period. You come in here and don’t want to take penalties against Boston; we can’t kill off one penalty,. Shame on us."
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, regarded as one of the league's finest, fell to 8-7-1 with the loss. Taylor Hall had two goals for Boston.
The team had a 1-0 edge in the second period, but couldn't find the net in the third. Steven Stamkos scored the Bolts' only goal for his 999th NHL point.
“We played well," Cooper said of the second period. "We had them on their heels and it got us back in the game. We deserved to win that period, and we did. But that’s not where the game ended. We didn’t have the push we had in this second. It was a winnable game. "
The Bolts now travel to Philadelphia to face the Flyers on Thursday night at 7 p.m.