The Tampa Bay Lightning lost another close game as they were beaten by the Winnipeg Jets 4-3 in a Saturday matinee affair at Amalie Arena.
There is rarely a high point in a loss, but there was one to celebrate yesterday as Steven Stamkos scored his 400th career in the third period.
In the locker room after the game Stamkos said “It’s still pretty surreal, You never envision scoring that many goals in the NHL, and hopefully there’s more to come.”
Teammate Victor Hedman who has assisted on 63 of Stamkos goals said “It’s an unreal accomplishment by an unreal player, I’m super proud of him and super happy for him.”
This was Stamkos seventh goal of the season and at the time cut the Winnipeg lead to 3-2.
Victor Hedman’s fourth goal of the season tied the game at on early in the first period on an assist by Stamkos.
The Jets then scored two goals in a 21 second span in the second period to go up 3–1. The Stamkos goal cut it to 3-2, before the Jests went up 4-2 and that was for all intents and purposes the hockey game.
The Loss snaps the Lightning’s three game winning streak and drops the Lightning to 9-6-2 on the season.
In a not to early look at the playoff standings, the Lightning are four points out of a playoff spot right now.
After impressive wins against Buffalo, and the New York Rangers, in which the Lightning seemed to correct a lot of the issues that plagued the team early in the season, The Lightning were not as sharp as they had been in their recent games.
The Lightning went 0/2 on the power play, while allowing the Jets to convert on 1/4 opportunities.
Andrei Vasilevskiy had 23 saves in the loss. Vasilevskiy did not play poorly, but will need to play better especially against the marquee teams in the league.
Coach Jon Cooper challenged a goal by Jack Roslovic in the second period as Cooper felt the goal was scored by a high stick. After an official review, the Lightning lost the challenge and the goal counted.
Because of the lost challenge, the Jets were awarded a power play, and Nikolai Ehlers scored to put the Jets up 3-1 just 21 seconds later.
Cooper said that he would not have challenged unless he was 100 percent certain that the goal was scored on a high stick. The folks in Toronto did not see it that way, and that kind of turned the game in the Jets favor.
The Lightning have two road games this week, as they will go to St. Louis to play the Stanley Cup champion Blues on Tuesday Night in a nationally televised game. The Lightning will then play in Chicago Thursday night before coming home to play Anaheim on Saturday.
