Lightning flattened by Ottawa in 6-3 loss

by Gary Shelton on January 7, 2018 · 0 comments

in general, Tampa Bay Lightning

Herman scored his fifth goal of the season./JEFFREY S. KING

Hedman scored his fifth goal of the season./JEFFREY S. KING

Sunday, 3 a.m.

Even in the good times, the bad ones are not that far away. Even when a team has played as well as the Tampa Bay Lightning, the road can turn rough.

For instance, Saturday night's 6-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

The Bolts fell behind 3-0, then incredibly came back to tie the game. Then, once again, Ottawa scored three straight goals to win going away.

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Cooper didn't like what he saw Saturday night.JEFFREY S. KING

Cooper didn't like what he saw Saturday night.JEFFREY S. KING

"I think there’s a little bit of entitlement running through our team right now," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "What’s a little discouraging is our goaltender who’s been, in my opinion, our MVP this year and for us to let him down like that, those goals going in the start of the period were men’s league goals, and that’s just a non-commitment to playing in your own end. To win in this league, you have to play in your own end.

"There’s a group of guys that are going to have to circle the wagons in there, the leaders, and figure this one out because we’re just going down a road right now, it’s that part of that season right now where you just can’t let things slide. The regular season, you can’t win a Stanley Cup in the regular season. You have to get to the playoffs first. And I think there’s a team in there that thinks we’ve already made the playoffs. And with that attitude, we’re not going to go anywhere."

Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy gave up six goals on 33 shots.

"This is a really hard league to win in," Cooper said. "When you’re put in situations where you’re playing a team on a back-to-back, kind of have to take advantage of those because there’s going to be times when you’re on the second half of a back-to-back."

After trailing 3-0, the Bolts got goals from Victor Hedman, Slater Koekkoek and Yanni Gourde.

Can’t spot them a 3-0 lead in this league and expect to come back. Give them a little credit for coming back, but in the end, the same mistakes cost us and give Ottawa credit, they didn’t care who they were playing. They just came out and played a hockey game and won it. So good on them.”

Tampa Bay is at Detroit tonight. The puck drops at 7 p.m.

 

 

 

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