Jon Cooper was happy with the two points his Tampa Bay Lightning earned on Saturday night at United Center, but the first-year coach didn’t gloss over the obvious. His team was dominated for most of regulation in a 3-2 shootout win against the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, but managed to come out on top despite not logging a shot in the first period and getting outshot 39-16 overall.
“Snuck out with a win,” he said,
smiling sheepishly. “I was looking for the police when we left
the locker room, because I thought we’d get arrested for stealing.
I think we stole two points.”
If that had been the case, then Chicago police
would’ve needed a very large set of handcuffs for 6-foot-7,
214-pound Tampa Bay goalie Ben
Bishop, who made 37 saves and didn’t wilt despite several
intense flurries late in the third with the Blackhawks on the power
play. Bishop got caught out of his net on the second goal he allowed
– scored by Brandon
Saad off an odd bounce to cap a power play in the second period –
but wasn’t beaten again, including overtime and the three-round
shootout.
“[Bishop] gave us a chance to fight back,”
Lightning star veteran Marty St. Louis said, after picking up his
first goal and assist of the season. “That’s what he did. And
we did. We didn’t play a very good first period. They overwhelmed
us, I think, with their speed and their puck possession. I thought we
got a bit better in the second and because of the play of [Bishop],
we were able to be only two goals away going into the third.”
Chicago (1-0-1) was in complete control for about
50 minutes, taking a 2-0 lead into the third on goals by Patrick
Kane and Saad, who each scored for the second game in a row to
start the season. It just wasn’t enough to polish off the Lightning
(1-1-0), who didn’t force Blackhawks goalie Corey
Crawford (14 saves) to make a stop until 21:21 into the game.
Tampa Bay eventually fought back with two goals scored within two
minutes of each other midway through the third to force overtime and
eventually the shootout. In the breakaways, Valtteri
Filppula’s goal in the opening round was the difference, thanks
to three stops by Bishop against Blackhawks stars Jonathan
Toews, Kane and Marian
Hossa. Understandably, the Blackhawks left the arena feeling
empty, despite earning a point in the standings. They converted just
one of five power plays into goals and the penalty kill – which was
outstanding a year ago – gave up the game-tying goal in the third
after allowing three goals on six power plays against the Washington
Capitals in the season-opener.
“It’s tough to comment on [the penalty
kill],” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “It didn’t
even get through 30 seconds … before it went in the net. So, it’s
a tough start right now on the PK.”
Chicago now has another three-day off period
before playing its first road game on Wednesday against the St. Louis
Blues. Saturday night, a different St. Louis gave the Blackhawks
trouble – the speedy 38-year old, 5-foot-8 kind who’s one of the
Lightning’s only veterans. After watching his team get outplayed,
St. Louis finally got Tampa Bay going by backhanding a rebound past
Crawford at 10:08 of the third to make it 2-1. He then set up the
tying goal by Teddy
Purcell, who capped a power play with his first goal of the new
season by firing a shot past Crawford from the right circle. Prior to
his pass to Purcell, St. Louis knocked down a puck coming hard and
high around the glass after a missed shot by Steven
Stamkos, who picked up the secondary assist.
“I’ll take an assist on that one any day,”
Stamkos said. “That puck was three feet in the air and Marty
just stuck his stick out. He’s got great hand-eye coordination, so
that doesn’t surprise us. We see that a lot in practice. Gutsy win
by us.”
That’s one way to describe it. Cooper had
another way. “There’s a reason they’re the Stanley Cup
champs and they showed us for most of the game why they’re the best
team in the League,” he said of the Blackhawks. “Again,
you sit here and give our guys credit. We needed Ben
Bishop to stand tall if we had any chance of coming back, and he
did. We just hung around.”
As for being held without a shot in the first
period, it did match the franchise-record low. It was the third time
in franchise history the Lightning failed to record a shot on goal in
a period, also doing it twice in 1999, in a 4-2 win against the
Philadelphia Flyers on Nov. 11 and again 10 days later in a 3-1 loss
to the Phoenix Coyotes.
“I think we knew it all the time,”
Filppula said. “It doesn’t take much to look up and see that
we have no shots. I didn’t think it was as bad as the stat looked,
but obviously we need to get pucks to the net more.”
It was just the second time Chicago had ever held
a team without a shot for an entire period, with the only other time
happening on Dec. 4, 1946 against the Detroit Red Wings. This time,
the Blackhawks blocked eight of nine pucks the Lightning sent toward
the goal in the first, with St. Louis missing the net on the other.
Still, after losing the game it didn't seem quite as memorable.
"That means we’re playing well
defensively, but at the same time we’re not playing to win periods
... we’re playing to win games," Chicago forward Ben
Smith said. "We were up 2-0. It’s a little
disappointing to come away with only one point."
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