TAMPA, Fla. – Just 56 seconds into the third period, Minnesota forward Matt Boldy gave the Wild a 3-2 lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning as he took a cross-ice pass from forward Mats Zuccarello and scored on the power play.
Kirill Kaprizov netted an empty-netter late to score his second goal of the evening as the Wild shaded the Lightning, 4-2.
“You can’t just live in this game and say, ‘It’s the PK’s fault.’” said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. “The PK just scored a shortie. The problem is we took four penalties again and they took one.”
Tampa Bay has 65 penalty minutes with 31 penalties (12th/NHL) over their first seven games.
“We did a good job on the PK and in the end, we didn’t get it done,” Cooper explained. “We put stress on ourselves by compounding things by taking penalties. The bottom line is in this team, they were two disciplined teams, two very good hockey teams.”
Special teams have been a common mainstay in recent years for the Tampa Bay Lightning, but so far this season, the Bolts have struggled on both the penalty kill and power play.
Currently, the Lightning have converted only 69.2 percent (29th/NHL) of their penalty kills while offensively, the power play sits at 5-of-27 over the first seven games.
Even with that, Tampa Bay has a solid offensive attack as the Lightning have averaged four goals per game (T/5th, NHL) in posting a 4-3-0 record and are tied for fifth in the Eastern Conference.
Cooper commented on the stress that the Lightning penalties have caused.
“We have a one-goal lead with two minutes to go in the second period,” said Cooper. “We have a bad break down and we gave them a freebie. We take a penalty, they score on the power play and shut down. That was it. The game was won in like four minutes.”
The Lightning took a 2-1 lead at the 11:33 juncture of the second period when Nikita Kucherov scored his eighth goal of the season for a 2-1 lead. He and Nick Paul were set up in front of the net and he hit Kucherov with a short pass.
Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian tied the game at 2-2 at the 18:22 mark of the second period as he and Boldy gave Minnesota the upper hand with the 3-2 lead when they scored the two goals in a span of 2:34.
Tampa Bay went on the power play at 5:46 in the third, but could not convert.
“Our PK was rough in the third,” analyzed Tampa Bay center Anthony Cirelli. “It was a tie game to start the third period. We have got to kill one off. We have got to stick to our plan. It’s a full 60 minutes of us just going to work shift after shift.”
Through the game, Cirelli and Brandon Hagel were a tough matchup as the duo combined on Tampa Bay’s first goal, a short-handed score, which saw the Bolts tie the game at 1-1.
Cirelli controlled a loose puck off of his rush and when he regained control, he flipped the puck behind him to Hagel for the score.
“Two workers,” Cooper noted. “They’re workers with skill and they don’t give it up. They play right until the end and I can’t say enough about them.”
Hagel was coming off his second hat-trick of his career as he scored three goals in just a 6:25 stint to lead the Lightning to an 8-5 win in New Jersey on Tuesday.
Tampa Bay outshot Minnesota, 25-18, but the Wild posted 29 hits and the Lightning only managed 14.
