The Lightning’s home opener started out just the way you’d expect. Thunder Alley was buzzing, a sold out crowd of over 19,000 fans packed the arena, rookie Curtis Douglas took his solo lap, and there was a fight less than three minutes in.
Douglas, acquired just Monday, only needed nine seconds to drop the gloves and take down Ottawa’s Kurtis MacDermid. The rookie raised his arms to the crowd, tossed his helmet to the ice, and skated to the penalty box to a roar of approval from the packed out arena.
Riding the early momentum, the Lightning’s power play struck twice in the first period, with Oliver Bjorkstrand and Nikita Kucherov giving Tampa Bay a 3–1 lead. The team spent much of training camp fine-tuning on special teams, and Bjorkstrand was the key addition they hoped would bring the power play together. On Thursday, it seemed to pay off early on.
The second period told a different story, with the momentum swinging in Ottawa’s favor. Just 42 seconds in, the Senators scored when a shot hit the post and went past Andrei Vasilevskiy to make it 3–2. Ottawa continued to press the Lightning, and late in the period Shane Pinto converted on a breakaway to tie the game at 3–3.
"It's hard not to be disappointed, right? You're up a 3-1 lead, and you let it slip away and let a team hang around and get back in it,” said veteran defenseman Ryan McDonagh.
With 1:47 remaining, Pinto struck again to give Ottawa the lead. An empty-netter sealed it, handing the Lightning a loss on Opening Night.
“You leave it up to chance or one mistake, and we got caught making one too many tonight and gave them too many looks in the end," McDonagh continued. "And we should win a lot of games when we score four goals, and for us to give up that many, that's not a recipe for us. So (we’ve) definitely got to clean some things up."
The Lightning reverted back to some of the same habits that have hurt them in the past.
“They skated, and as that game went on.. we stopped,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of his team. "In a game where it looked like, two teams were heading to get a point and see what happens in overtime.. They pushed at the end, and we didn't.”
The Lightning will face the New Jersey Devils on Saturday at Benchmark International Arena.