The Columbus Blue Jackets shocked the Tampa Bay Lightning at Tampa in a 4-3 comeback victory. What looked like an easy victory for the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of the series turned into a nightmare in their home building. For the Columbus Blue Jackets it was a comeback for the ages against the best team in the regular season.
Tampa Bay took an early lead against the Jackets in the first period scoring three unanswered goals. Columbus was outskated and out played. Defensive errors and turnovers marred the Jackets in the first period.
The powerful Tampa Bay offense turned the Jackets goal into a shooting gallery taking 13 shots to the Jacket’s 6. The Lightning drew first blood against the Jackets. Tampa Bay center Alex Killors stole the puck from Jackets defenseman Seth Jones, skated one on one against Sergei Bobrovsky, and beat him on the backhand, scoring an unassisted shorthanded goal at 4:12.
“We were fortunate, it’s just a great team win,” Jones said. “The belief in here is … obviously we need that if we’re going to do anything.”
Anthony Ciarelli made it 2-0 off the rebound at 11:01 with assists going to Erik Cernak and JT Miller. Tampa Bay center Yanni Gourde finished off the scoring making it 3-0 with a tip in at 17:50 assisted by Mikhail Sergachev and Jan Rutta.
Columbus got on the scoreboard in the second period.
Nick Foligno scored on a breakaway, beating Lightning netminder Andre Vasilevskiy. Foligno was assisted by Josh Anderson at 9:15.
“I was really proud of the group because once we got life, we started to take over and start to instill our game on them,” Foligno said. “It’s going to be huge in this series because that’s a good team. They don’t need much to make you pay, but we showed that we can score some big goals too.”
The Jackets defense found a rhythm holding the Lighting to no scoring, while the offense took 11 shots on net. The second period ended with the Jackets trailing 3-1.
“We have tried to prepare the best way to play this team,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. “We did some good things for a lot of minutes of game and some struggles through some of it all. But we found a way. Tonight we found a way.”
The goal scoring floodgates opened for the Jackets in the third period. Columbus played with reckless abandon scoring 4 unanswered goals. Jackets defenseman David Savard made the score 3-2 deking Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman and beating Vasilevskiy unassisted at 7:56.
“We have to give them credit, they played hard for 60 minutes,” Hedman said. “Good thing it’s not a best-of-1, it’s a best-of-7. We’ll learn from our mistakes today and make sure we bounce back right.”
[WATCH:Â All Blue Jackets vs. Lightning Game 1 highlights |Â Complete series coverage]
“I think [Bobrovsky] kept us in the game with some huge saves early in the second and I think we got going from there,” Savard said. “It was great timing to get those two saves and it kind of sparked our team.”
Josh Anderson tied the game assisted by Boone Jenner at 11:54. Seth Jones scored the game winner at 14:05 assisted by Artemi Panarin and Zach Werenski.
“We gave them some life with some turnovers,” Steven Stamkos said. “And the special-teams battle that was so key all season long, we didn’t get it done tonight. The shorthanded goal got us going early tonight, but we get that four-minute power play and we have a chance to bury them and we give up a shorty.”
The Jackets out shot Tampa Bay 9 shots to 3 in the final period.
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