In Tampa Tuesday, the Lightning had an opportunity to close within two points of the Toronto Maple Leafs for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson had a goal in Coyotes win over Bolts Tuesday – file photo by Brent Clark
Instead, the Arizona Coyotes hung a 5-3 loss on the Bolts with two big goals in the third period coming from Radim Vrbata and Oliver Ekman-Larsson .
“We’re starting to run out of [games],” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “That’s the problem right now.”
Louis Domingue made 36 saves to get the win as the Coyotes improved to 27-37-9.
“[Domingue] had an unbelievable game,” Arizona’s Christian Fischer said. “It was a great team effort to walk out of here with two points. I couldn’t be happier.”
Vrbata got the eventual game-winner early in the final frame.
“In the position that we’re in we want to be spoilers,” Vrbata said. “We were down after two periods and found a way to come back. We turned it on and killed some penalties at the end to get two points.”
Connor Murphy, Fischer and Christian Dvorak also scored for Arizona.
Tampa’s goal scorers were Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov and Vladislav Namestnikov.
“We’re obviously disappointed with the result tonight, but we can’t lay down. We can’t fold. We’ve just got to refocus. We know we’re playing Boston twice. We know they lost tonight. Still opportunities left before us, but obviously we’ve got to straighten things out,” Hedman said.
WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Lightning highlights
Andrei Vasilevskiy who was left out to dry by his defense made 30 saves in taking the loss for Tampa Bay who dropped to 34-29-9.
“If you’re not going to defend, you’re not going to win. That’s where I think the guys got to get that back inside them,” Cooper said. “You look at the stretch of 15-to-17 games prior to these three, it was 1-1, 2-1 and we won. It seems now it’s got to be 6-5 or it’s not fun. That’s how it used to be here for a long time. We’re going nowhere if that’s the attitude we’re going to have.”
Cooper is starting to revert back to his testy side with the number of games dwindling to a point where every one fo them needs to be a win if his team is to make the post season.
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