This was a typical Lightning game. A game many would say the Lightning had no business winning after the horrid start to the first 30 minutes of the game.
But in typical Lightning fashion, the Bolts came storming back after trailing 4-1 and put five unanswered goals on the board to beat the Buffalo Sabres for their fourth straight win 6-4.
The slow starts just seem like something Lightning fans are going to have to deal with. For whatever reason, the Lightning seem to get out of the gate very slow at times and it does not seem to matter who the competition is.
The Lightning fell behind 2-0 in the first period and the Sabres made it 4-1 before the Lightning went to work as Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat added power play goals to cut the Sabres lead to 4-3 at the end of two periods.
The third period was all Tampa Bay as Kevin Shattenkirk, Alex Killorn, and Anthony Cirelli added goals to give the Lightning the 6-4 win.
The Lightning have now won four in a row which is their longest win streak of the season. With division games coming up against Montreal and Ottawa, Thursday and Saturday, the streak could reach six.
The Power play continues to click for the Lightning as they were 2/5 against the Sabres and currently are second in the NHL behind Edmonton at 29.7%.
The penalty kill is slowly improving as the Lightning are now 21st in the league at 82.6% on the kill.
During the four game win streak, the Lightning are 6/14 on the power play and 2/12 on the penalty kill. A big improvement in both areas since the start of the season.
The goaltending is still not where it needs to be as neither Vasilevskiy or McElhinney have yet to record a shoutout and neither one has shown the ability yet to put the team on their back and carry their team to a win.
Offensively the Lightning remain very potent as they are second in the league behind Colorado averaging 3.58 goals a game. The Lightning rank 13th in the league defensively giving up 3.16 goals a game.
This is the time of year when you need to starting piling up some points, as the competitive level usually increases in January as everyone is fighting hard for those two points.
The Lightning have 46 points and are in third place now in the Atlantic division trailing second place Toronto by three points.
It’s too early to say if this is the roll we were expecting the Lightning to get on at some point this season, or if this is just another one of short winning streaks that the team will go on this season.
These last four games, although there have been flaws in the game, the Lightning have managed to get Two points in each game and eight points total, and that is the most important thing this stage of the season.
