BY Byron Richmond
The Tampa Bay Lightning just can’t seem to get a break against the Preds as of late. Saturday night was no exception as it was another missed opportunity to beat the Preds as they lost in overtime 3-2.
The Bolts certainly had the win under control when they took a 2-1 lead into the 3rd period. But Ryan McDonagh took a late interference penalty to help give the Preds a power play opportunity and as quickly as it lasted Nashville pounced on a sleeping penalty kill by the Bolts as they let free Roman Josi to tie the game up at 2.
In overtime the Bolts took a ‘to many men on the ice’ penalty to give the Preds their 5th of the game. As soon as the power play expired Ryan Ellis shot the puck to the high slot of the net and passed McElhinney to stun the sell out crowd of 36,000 plus to beat the Bolts 3-2.
This loss to the Preds is the Bolts 4th in a row and have lost 6 of the last 7 outings. The Bolts did improve much better with their 5 on 5 play but need to work more on the penalties they take and need to improve their penalty kills.
The Bolts now enter a 2 week stretch of road games in which 3 of those games are in 4 nights before heading off to Sweden for the Global Series game against the Sabres so the Bolts won’t be playing at home until mid November. Can they fix these issues most definitely it’s still early in the year.
