The Tampa Bay Lightning skated into the 2022-2023 season on Tuesday night in Madison Square Garden facing the New York Rangers. It felt like we haven’t seen our beloved Bolts in quite a while even though it hasn’t been as long as most fanbases have waited to see their teams play a meaningful game. The ’21-22 season ended with us losing to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals and we’re all ready to see if our boys can make another Stanley Cup run - making it four Finals trips in a row with a chance to win three Cups in four seasons. If we’re able to accomplish that, it’ll be with some tweaks in the locker room.
The core of the Bolts squad remains the same this year with stalwarts Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilevskiy between the posts. There are, though, a few new faces on the ice and several more returning faces in new roles. Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul, who were additions last season, are both now 2nd line guys. Cole Koepke has been brought up from the Syracuse Crunch and found himself on the 3rd line for opening night alongside Vladislav Namestnikov, who has returned to the Lightning on a one-year deal. Defensively, Cal Foote is now skating next to “Heddy” while the 3rd defensive pairing is filled by two newcomers in Haydn Fleury and Philippe Myers.
We have ourselves some changes in the lineups yet tonight we saw a reoccurring theme when playing the “Blueshirts”. Merely four months ago the Lightning faced the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final. After falling down 2-0 in the series, the Lightning were able to rattle off four straight wins and seal the series in six games. One of the primary reasons New York was able to not only gain a series lead but also remain competitive was due to their Special Teams play. The Rangers scored 14 goals through the six game battle with more than a 3rd of those coming off of the Power Play. That series, and tonight, saw two of the leagues best goalies face off and so Special Teams opportunities are critical – simply because it’s hard to beat Igor Shesterkin or Andrei Vasilevskiy at even strength. Well, tonight the Rangers won the Special Teams game within the game and that ultimately was the key difference. Mika Zibanejad made his presence felt in this phase of the matchup by netting a short-handed goal in the 2nd Period and a Power Play goal in the 3rdPeriod, which would take the lead for the Rangers and they never gave it back.
It's just one game out of 82 and so no one should be overly concerned. One positive is that the Lightning were able to get some early Power Play success themselves as their lone goal was such by Captain Stammer, assisted by Kuch and Pointer – it’s nice to have Brayden back on that attack. Also, for much of the game Vasy looked like the stonewall we’ve come to know and love with a .923 Save Percentage while he racked up 36 saves.
We can all agree this isn’t how we’d hoped to start the year but as the age old saying goes, “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” and the Bolts are known to finish the season as one of the few teams still standing.
Oh…Rangers fans felt inspired to revisit the “Igor’s better” chant…we saw how that worked out for them in the ECF. We’ll keep that in mind…
Comentarios