After another rough start, the Lightning continued to give themselves a chance in the third period Tuesday night in Buffalo.
A dramatic goal scored by Brandon Hagel with 7 seconds left of regulation gave the Lightning a much needed point. Still, they head back to Tampa with a third-consecutive loss.
Here are my three takeaways..
The adjustment period is happening.
This is the part where reality sets in. Regardless of what the Lightning did in the past, this is a new team. The core is the same, the coaching staff is the same but there’s a totally new energy in the building. When you lose active veterans like Alex Killorn, Pat Maroon and Corey Perry, it’s going to take some time to adjust.
Training camp was great, preseason was solid but when the regular season begins, the level of physicality increases. The Bolts are still trying to find their identity and it would be fair to say the teams in the Atlantic division would prefer they’re not in the equation this year. My guess is that as time goes on, they’ll find their rhythm. We saw a glimpse of it in the third period.
The Lightning are facing some early adversity.
This isn’t the first time the Lightning have started the season with some added adversity. They’ll get through it as they always do, but the foundation is a little bumpy while they’re looking to find their identity as a new team.
Steven Stamkos and Andrei Vasilevskiy are arguably the two biggest pillars, both create stability in the locker room and both are currently injured. Their return will help.
An extension for Stamkos wouldn’t hurt either..
Their execution got better as time went on
After a rough start, the Lightning continued to give themselves a chance in the third period. Anthony Cirelli, Tanner Jeannot, and Brandon Hagel were grinding it out in the offensive zone and helped the Lightning keep the puck alive. They owned a majority of the possession and the gaps in defense looked to be improved from Sunday. Sergachev stepped up in a big way.
“You're sitting there 2-0 down in the game and I just thought we got better and better. I never felt that we were in trouble and it's unfortunate we didn't touch the puck in overtime, but they deserved for sure a point, maybe two out of that, Jon Cooper told reporters after the loss. “We've just got to keep plugging away. This league can humble you. You've got to have that mental fortitude to fight your way through it. But you look at a lot of what we've done as a group, it's been excellent. We just haven't been able to generate when we needed to."
By the end of the game, we saw a glimpse of Lightning hockey. The Bolts will get another shot to improve their game as they head back home to face the Canucks on Thursday night.