The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn\u2019t overcome a 2-0 deficit on the road Thursday and dropped a 4-1 game to the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre.<\/p>\n
A dominant second period for Winnipeg changed Tampa Bay’s record to 38-18-4 this season and handed the Bolts a fourth consecutive loss as the Lightning seek to get back to their pre-Olympics standard of play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be fine, and we\u2019ve got a great group in there. Ultimately you get judged by your wins and losses, and we\u2019ve been trending down since this break,\u201d head coach Jon Cooper said postgame. \u201cBut if there\u2019s a group I want to stand behind, it\u2019s the one in that locker room over there. Sometimes you\u2019ve just gotta learn the hard way, and that\u2019s what we are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay had a few solid chances in the first period, and Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy denied numerous quality looks for the Jets over the opening 20 minutes before Winnipeg took command in the middle frame.<\/p>\n
Winnipeg kept pushing in the second period, opening the scoring with a pair of late goals while outshooting the visitors 14 to seven in the process.<\/p>\n
Forward Morgan Barron took the 1-0 lead for the Jets with 4:29 left in the middle frame, burying a rebound chance at the left post off a 2-on-1 rush shot from Cole Koepke in the right circle.<\/p>\n
The Jets then doubled their advantage to 2-0 with 18 seconds left in the period off a one-timed shot by Mark Scheifele in the left faceoff circle shortly after the Jets broke the puck out of their own end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just not a good defensive game by us and it was a good offensive game by them,\u201d Lightning forward Brayden Point said. \u201cThey were skating and we were slow to pucks. They were getting odd-man (rushes) and capitalizing on them, so not what we want to do and not how we were winning games. So hopefully we can get back to how we were winning games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lightning flashed some life with a quick goal to open the third period, making it 2-1 when a Darren Raddysh shot atop the power-play setup bounced off the back wall and into the slot for a quick shot by Point near the right hashmark less than two minutes into the final frame.<\/p>\n
The goal was Point\u2019s fifth tally over his last six games, a stretch in which he\u2019s scored 10 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cRaddy does a good job just trying to funnel it to the net, and I get a good bounce and it lands right on my stick,\u201d Point said of the power play. \u201cI think just getting pucks to the net was a focus, and I thought we did okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Tampa Bay possessing many of the chances early in the third period, Winnipeg re-established its two-goal lead before the sixth minute with a shot from Gustav Nyquist in the high slot following a failed breakout by the Lightning.<\/p>\n
Kyle Connor capped the scoring with an empty-net goal for the Jets to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought they were faster than us a little bit tonight,\u201d Yanni Gourde said. \u201cThey played good, and we didn’t play our game. But credit to them, they played really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasilevskiy finished with 26 saves for Tampa Bay, who will look to get back to form when they open a divisional back-to-back on Saturday in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough one giving up that one with 19 seconds left in the second period. We come out, the power play scores. Listen, did we push? We did. But ultimately, who got the next one? They did. And then after that I think we were searching for answers,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s times like that, this team’s been not only physically tough, but mentally tough, and we’re being tested right now. And when you play 82 games, you’re gonna get tested. We’re in kind of one of those ruts right now that now we\u2019ve got to dig in and see what we have. So this is a good test for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benjamin\u2019s Three Stars:<\/p>\n
1. Mark Scheifele, WPG (Goal, assist)<\/p>\n
2. Connor Hellebuyck, WPG (26-save win)<\/p>\n
3. Kyle Connor, WPG (Goal, assist)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn\u2019t overcome a 2-0 deficit on the road Thursday and dropped a 4-1 game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-180750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}