Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 24 of 25 shots to win his 300th career game and Jake Guentzel scored two goals to pace the Lightning to a 4-1 win over the 15-2-0 Winnipeg Jets.
“How you become the best – you are put in the big moments at the big times and you deliver, time and time again,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “Any time you say ‘best,’ ‘greatest,’ ‘fastest,’ usually something is coming with it.”
Vasilevskiy became the fastest goalie in NHL history to post his 300th victory as his achievement stopped the Jets’ seven game win streak. He recorded the feat in 490 games played and went ahead of Jacque Plant, who posted 521 wins in 21 seasons. Plant played with the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“So to do what he has done and to get the 300 wins in that amount of time, he accomplished that,” Cooper explained. “So when you win a Vezina, winning two Stanley Cups and participating in four Finals, I am not sure what else you can say about the man.”
Vasilevskiy’s presence against the NHL’s most dangerous force after nearly one-quarter of the season was ironic in that he is clearly one of the greatest goalies in the history of the NHL and was facing an offensive juggernaut that won 15 of it’s first 16 games with a dynamic and consistent offense who threw all the different situations at Vasilevskiy that a goalie could face.
He made the start in a game where he could carve his name in NHL history as Winnipeg came into Amalie Arena, and once again, Vasilevskiy rose to the occasion.
As Vasilevskiy stated, special teams were a major product as Winnipeg came in with a 42.2 conversion percentage on the power play. They were 12 percentage points ahead of No. 2 Vegas in that category. The Lightning penalty kill was perfect in turning away all five of the Jets’ power plays.
The Jets were the first team in league history to win 15 of their first 16 games and they had just outscored their opponents, 33-12, in a seven-game win streak.
While Vasilevskiy was appreciative of the credit for the 300th win, he chalked up Tampa Bay’s victory to it’s special teams.
“I feel like in the NHL, it’s all about special teams nowadays,” explained Vasilevskiy. “Our PK – they were very great tonight. Really consistent. They blocked shots – smart plays, so unreal!”
The Lightning’s penalty-kill percentage now sits at 77.6 percent, 22nd in the NHL, as the team killed all five of it’s penalties on Thursday evening and the Bolts have turned away 12 of 13 opponents’ power plays in the last five games.
“We had chance stop put pucks on net, they just didn’t get there, and the other part is we took penalties,” commented Cooper. “So you want to flirt with danger against the best power play in the league, that’s what we did.”
Conversely, the Lightning have been reduced in the effectiveness of special teams this season. The Lightning have scored only four times in having the odd-man advantage on 24 occasions in the last nine games.
Much of the derision on the power play comes from taking only 28 shots on goal per game. The lack of attack via shots on goal was seen in the third period when the Lightning went for nearly 15 minutes without a placing a puck inside of Winnipeg goalie Eric Comrie’s glove.
“I didn’t like it,” Cooper said of the shooting drought. “We had a power play in there too and we had looks, we just didn’t hit the net. There’s another team out there too and they are down two.”
This feeds into the idea that the Lightning have scored first in their last eight games, but limped to a 4-3-1 mark where they lost three in a row on a four-game road trip.
The end of the exasperating road trip was extended in a 2-1 loss to the Flyers in a shootout on Nov. 7. Fast-forward a week, and overall, the Lightning formulated the best 60 minutes in their 8-6-1 start.
