Raw Charge
Summary
The Tampa Bay Lightning started fast, battled a much bigger Washington Capitals team, and held on for a 3-1 victory in their home opener. First period goals from Charle-Edouard D’Astous and Conor Geekie built the lead, and Jake Guentzel’s empty-netter sealed it as Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves in his 600th career game. Brandon Hagel finished the night with two assists. In just the second game of the season, Coach Jon Cooper made some tweaks to the line-up as he went with an 11/7 rotation with Emil Lilleberg drawing in and Jansen Harkins getting the night off. Gage Goncalves was promoted to the top line with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. Ilya Mikeyev dropped to a line with Zemgus Girgensons and Pontus Holmberg. The Lightning couldn’t ask for a better first twenty minutes of play. They attacked the puck, kept the Capitals in their own zone, and most importantly, put two goals in the back of the net. A mish-mash line of Jeff Viel, Pontus Holmberg, and Conor Geekie had the first real chance as they forced a turnover to put pressure on Charlie Lindgren. The Caps netminder was the best player on the ice for Washington as he was tested with 14 shots through 20 minutes. It was Charle-Edouard D’Astous that finally put the Lightning on the board first, and it came off of a rather simple play. The puck was dumped in, they won a board battle, and Hagel found an open D’Astous, who was able to walk in and wrist it past Lindgren for his first goal of the season. The Lightning defense had a lot of space to get shots off as Washington was collapsing down low for most of the period. They took full advantage as the blueline combined for eight shot attempts in the first period. The Lightning’s first crack at the power play was very, very good. They did everything but put the puck in the net. The first unit was on the ice for the entire two minutes, won three face-offs, had two clean entries and generated three shots on three high-danger chances. Their best came off of Brayden Point’s stick, but Lindgren was up to the task. Washington pushed back a little, but the Bolts kept them to the perimeter, and then Conor Geekie came through big time. With just under four minutes to go, Geekie finished off a nice rush play by wristing it over Lindgren’s glove. The goal gave the Lightning a nice two-goal cushion. A late power play by the Caps was dealt with fairly easily. After such a dominating period, it wasn’t a surprise that things weren’t as one-sided to start the second. It wasn’t so much that the Lightning were flat, the Caps just decided to try some offense. It would pay off seven minutes into the period as Washington took advantage of an errent clearing pass to get on the board. Justin Sourdoff found a seam in the slot and redirected a shot-pass from Jakob Chychrun to make it 2-1. The Lightning followed with an immediate chance as Ilya Mikheyev tried to fam a puck past Lindgren from in close. The Washington netminder wasn’t as busy as he was in the first period, but was just as sharp, with his best save coming when he flashed across the crease to deny Anthony Cirelli at the far post. That also led to a bit of a scrum. Emil Lilleberg squared off with big Vincent Desharnais to the delight of the crowd. A much lighter match-up would quickly follow as Pontus Holmberg took exception to some extra hits from Chychrun and they both went for unsportsmanlike conduct. With a lead entering the third period for the first time this season, the Lightning came out with a determined effort to play clean hockey. The refs were determined to make sure some of the tensions from the second period didn’t escalate as they sent Zemgus Girgensions and Tom Wilson off for roughing for a post-whistle scrum that wasn’t too heated. The teams were pretty even for the first half of the period with the Lightning’s best chance coming off of the stick of Victor Hedman as he cut into the slot, but Lindgren fought it off. Erik Cernak also had a nice look at the net off of a rush, but his arrempt to pick the far corner went wide of the net. Vasilevskiy had his best save of the night as he flashed out his right pad to deny a deflection from Tom Wilson just as a Capitals power play expired. Lindgren kept his team in the game with a sprawling save on Geekie from almost the same spot the young forward scored from earlier in the game. The Bolts had a chance to seal it with just over seven minutes to go as Martin Fehervary was sent to the penalty box. John Carlson generated a nice tip chance that just went wide, but he also fumbled a one-timer that led to a clear. Jake Guentzel made it 3-1 when he shuffled home an empty net goal with just over two minutes to play. It proved to be an important one as Washington put the pressure on (despite not having Tom Wilson who had picked up a 10-minute misconduct) and plinked one of off of the post in the dying seconds. Vasilevskiy and the defense held strong to preserve the victory. The Goals Charlie-Edouard D’Astous (1) [Brandon Hagel, Emil Lilleberg] 1-0 Lightnin Conor Geekie (1) [Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel) 2-0 Lightning Justin Sourdiff (1) [Jakob Chychrun, Boone Jenner] Jake Guentzel (1) [Nikita Kucherov, John Carlson] Empty Net, 3-1 Lightning The Numbers Box Score Time on Ice – Lightning