The Tampa Bay Lightning had a great second period which buried the Blue Jackets in a 5-3 loss.
Mikael Pyyhtiä(2), Adam Fantilli(6), and Cole Sillinger(6) provided the offense for Columbus, and Jet Greaves made 27 saves as Columbus lost their 11th road game of the season.
The Lightning scored three times in the second period to put the Jackets away. But the goals won't be what the Blue Jackets remember. In that second period, the Bolts' Conor Geekie made what Dean Evason called "Not a hockey play" when he went knee-on-knee with the Jackets Dante Fabbro. Fabbro would lay on the ice in obvious pain. When he was helped to his feet, he couldn't put any weight on that leg and immediately left the ice. Geekie would get a two-minute minor, but that was it.
Later in the second, chaos ensued when Cole Sillinger went after Brandon Hagel and Conor Geekie near the Jackets bench. With Sillinger trying to rough up Hagel, two other Lightning players jumped on Sillinger. From there, Mathieu Olivier came flying in and jumped on the pile. Sillinger was obviously upset about the play on Fabbro and let Hagel know about it. Cole would get 17 minutes in penalties and Olivier two. Tampa ended up with a 5-minute power play out of it all. They had it all but killed until the Bolts scored in the dying seconds to make it 4-0. The game was seemingly out of reach at that point.
But in the third, the Jackets would find themselves. They scored three times in the third, including twice in 42 seconds to make it 4-3, but it wasn't enough to make the full comeback. The Lightning would score on an empty net to seal the win.
Dean Evason talked after the game about how the Jackets responded to the hit that took out Dante Fabbro, "Cole Sillinger did the right thing. I mean, it's terrible. Man. It's terrible. It's not a hockey play. It's unfortunate, but yeah, for sure, our group stuck together in that situation."
Final Stats
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What's Next - The Blue Jackets return home on Thursday to play the New Jersey Devils.
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