In Tampa, The Ottawa Senators were unable sustain their early success on Tuesday. The Sens jumped to a 2-0 lead in the opening period, but the Lightning replied with five unanswered goals for a 5-2 win.
“We just played an event,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “To come back regardless of who we’re playing, there was that potential [of a slow start]. Give Ottawa credit, they came out hard, but I liked the response.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves in the Lightning win.
Tyler Ennis and Zach Sanford opened the scoring in the game for the Senators lead.
“Anytime you come into this building, especially right now … they might be playing the best hockey in the NHL,” Ottawa’s Colin White said. “We got off to a hot start but just let down a little bit, and that’s what happens when you play a good team.”
The Senators dropped to 19-28-5.
“We came out the way we had to, we just made some bad puck decisions that ended up in the back of our net,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “We wanted to get out of the first period, we did. If we were a little better with the puck we probably come out of it with the lead.”
Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov scored for Tampa to get them even, 2-2.
“‘Vasy’ made some huge saves to kind of jump-start our group and then ‘Kuch’ makes a beautiful move to get one for us,” Point said. “And we just kept going from there.”
The Lightning improved to 35-11-6.
Steven Stamkos and Corey Perry put Tampa up, 4-2, in the middle frame.
“Our big guys stepped up and made some plays and got us back in the game,” Perry said. “… We don’t like starting like that, it’s not ideal, but you have to deal with it the right way, and I think we did.”
Mikhail Sergachev added a third period strike for the 5-2 final.
Matt Murray made 17 saves in the Ottawa loss.
“I thought we kind of let off the gas a little bit and let them jump back into the game,” Sanford said. “Whatever it was — guys are sick, tired — whatever. We kind of took a step back, and they took over there the second half of the first. You give them that momentum and they are going to keep it going.”
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