The Lightning win-streak comes to an end after they fall to the Red Wings Sunday night.
The Lightning’s five-game win streak was snapped Sunday night in Detroit when they fell to the Red Wings 2-1. It was a winnable game for the Bolts, but they weren’t able to convert their scoring chances and turnovers were back in their game.
The first period started out pretty strong, with the Lightning owning majority of the possession time in the early minutes. Victor Hedman opened the scoring, completing a pass from Nikita Kucherov to put the Lightning up 1-0 at the 8:45 mark of the first period. They wouldn’t score another goal after that.
Both goaltenders were solid, but Andrei Vasilevskiy was elite, making 33 saves on 35 shots. Detroit saw him stop 8 shots while the Lightning were shorthanded in the second period.
The Bolts were left chasing the game for the majority of the first 40 minutes due to the amount of turnovers. They struggled to leave their own zone, which caused fatigue and made the night a somewhat easy one for Detroit to capitalize on. Both of the Red Wings goals came on turnovers.
The Lightning came out swinging in the third in hopes of turning the game around. That ultimately wasn’t enough as they lost 2-1 to the Red Wings.
“You just can't play a one-period game in this league and expect to win,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “We had a chance and the only reason we had a chance is because our goalie gave us a chance. We get that goal semi-early in the game that was a heck of a play by those guys and as soon as that happened, our game went south and they turned it up a notch."
The Lightning still have a chance to come out of the road trip with more points than games, but they’ll need a win in Philly on Tuesday night.
“Surprised? Yes. Disappointed? Yes. But we can't look back now. This game is behind us and now we have to go into another tough building in Philly and play a team that's having a heck of a year."