The Tampa Bay Lightning have three important games left on their schedule, but in their pursuit of the Atlantic Division’s top spot, they surely must have a sense of giving away too much over the past two matches.
The total amount of that giveaway? Two very crucial points.
Coach Jon Cooper’s squad, which trails the first-place Toronto Maple Leafs by four points, will finish its season series with the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Sunday night.
After opening the week with a solid 5-1 thumping of the New York Rangers at the Metropolitan Division club’s world-famous arena, the Lightning (45-26-8, 98 points) let two games get away from them in overtime — outcomes that could greatly affect their postseason.
They lost to Toronto on Matthew Knies’ overtime goal on Wednesday then blew a third-period lead and were done in by Detroit Red Wings rookie Marco Kasper on the tying and game-winning overtime goals.
The Lightning are also tied with the Florida Panthers, who have one fewer match to play.
“Ultimately, you want to get the result, the two points, but what we’re doing now, our process hasn’t been right the last little bit,” said Cooper after the Detroit loss. “It’s unfortunate because we’d put ourselves into a pretty good situation.
“Seventy-plus games and now it looks like we’re playing preseason games.”
The Lightning will host the Panthers on Tuesday and visit the Rangers again on Thursday to end the season after Sunday’s game with the Sabres, who lost 3-2 Saturday in a shootout to the Stanley Cup champs in Sunrise.
Unless he plans otherwise, Cooper will likely have this season’s Art Ross Trophy winner to help his team pass the Leafs or at least hold off the Panthers — Nikita Kucherov.
Tied with Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon with a league-high 116 points, Kucherov will win the scoring title over one of the next three games with either a goal or an assist as the Avalanche announced that MacKinnon (rest) will not play again in the regular season.
Kucherov has 34 goals and 82 assists, while Brayden Point leads with 41 goals.
In South Florida in the front end of their back-to-back, the Sabres (35-37-7, 77 points) led early but had to rally in the third period against a Florida club that rested most of its top-six forwards, including captain Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart, plus star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, to force a shootout.
However, Panthers backup Vitek Vanecek stuffed Jack Quinn, JJ Peterka and Alex Tuch to win the shootout 1-0.
The defeat left Buffalo, playing its best stretch of hockey, 8-2-1 in the past 11 contests.
“Good special teams, guys were stepping up when we needed,” said captain Rasmus Dahlin, who scored one of Buffalo’s two power-play goals. “On the road, one point is always important. I am happy we got that today.”
Peterka had a goal and an assist in the loss, marking his 15th multi-point game. That puts him second to only Tage Thompson (16) among forwards with multi-point outings.
Owen Power left the game and did not return after an awkward collision with fellow defenseman Mattias Samuelsson and Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe.
–Field Level Media
