With only 28 games left in a season that has shown promise, the Detroit Red Wings are going to get to know the Tampa Bay Lightning very well.
On Friday night in Tampa, the Red Wings will open a two-game stay in the Sunshine State by playing the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning.
Following that matchup — just the Atlantic Division rivals’ second so far — Detroit will go south Saturday to meet the Florida Panthers.
After Friday’s game, Detroit will play Tampa Bay two more times before the season ends — on March 26 in Michigan and April 19 in Florida.
In their first encounter in the Motor City on Oct. 14 — the Red Wings’ first game this season — decent goaltending was hard to come by, and the Lightning left with a 7-6 overtime win.
The game was an odd one.
Coming off an injury-filled, nine-game season that led to back surgery, Detroit’s Tyler Bertuzzi scored a career-high four times — usually enough for a team to win. Plus, the Red Wings put six shots past Andrei Vasilevskiy, who owns a 13-0-0 regular-season record against them.
But the Lightning countered with six goals over the last two periods and erased a trio of three-goal deficits to force the extra session.
Unlike in the Red Wings’ first contest against the Lightning, Detroit coach Jeff Blashill and his crew found a way to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 in overtime on Tuesday behind rookie sensation Lucas Raymond.
The 19-year-old winger — the NHL’s leading points producer among first-year players — crept in from the left side in a four-on-three power play and netted the winner on a rebound with eight seconds left in the extra session.
Raymond has 43 points (16 goals, 27 assists) in 54 games, including five goals on the man advantage and two in overtime.
“When you have a four-on-three power play, there’s so much open ice that you can just keep passing the puck to get a better chance,” Raymond said. “(Assistant coach Alex Tanguay) reminded us to get the puck on the net and make things happen.”
Fellow rookie Moritz Seider’s assist on the game-winner gave him a seven-game point streak — the best by a Detroit defenseman in franchise history.
Not much went right at all for the Lightning on Thursday, when they fell 5-1 to the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.
The loss snapped Tampa Bay’s season-high-tying, five-game winning streak and its seven-game home point streak (6-0-1).
Pittsburgh owned puck possession for the game’s majority, outshooting the Lightning 40-21 and going 1-for-3 on the power play.
With the Penguins up 3-1 late in the second period, things really began to unravel for the Lightning.
After a big brawl, Corey Perry was assessed a second minor infraction, incensing the home team and ending with coach Jon Cooper receiving a game misconduct.
Cooper said he did not receive an explanation from referee Wes McCauley on Perry’s extra penalty — though Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan got one.
“It was an arm pointing to the exit, that’s what I got,” Cooper said of McCauley’s explanation. “I’m not so sure in all the years, what I said is something that he’s never heard before in his reffing history.
“As a head coach, I have a duty to coach the game and at times you get a little emotional. I don’t know what I invented that got me tossed out.”
The defeat, coupled with Florida’s 3-0 home victory over the Ottawa Senators, slid the Lightning out of the Atlantic Division’s lead by a point, with the Panthers assuming the top spot.
–Field Level Media