Lightning avenge season-opening loss by beating Penguins

Entering the season, there were distinctly different expectations placed upon the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

One team has claimed the Stanley Cup title the past two seasons and is considered a favorite to extend that streak to a third year. And the other … well … winning a playoff series for the first time in three years would represent progress.

Roughly two weeks into the campaign, neither team has met those expectations.

The Penguins have managed to find ways to win games by large margins with a threadbare lineup of castoffs and misfits. The Lightning, meanwhile, have looked rather mediocre despite boasting a roster full of All-Stars and Olympians.

Those respective trends reversed course Tuesday as the Penguins fell to the Lightning, 5-1, at PPG Paints Arena. It was the Penguins’ first loss in regulation this season (3-1-2), and the Lightning pulled closer to the .500 mark (3-3-1).

Tuesday’s outcome occurred two weeks after the Penguins opened the NHL season with a lopsided 6-2 road win against the Lightning in Amalie Arena. Following that contest, Lightning coach Jon Cooper was harsh when assessing his team’s effort in a losing cause.

“We could have played Pittsburgh’s farm team tonight, and we might have seen the same results,” Cooper said Oct. 12.

Considering forwards Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jeff Carter, Bryan Rust and defensemen Kris Letang were all absent because of various medical concerns, the Penguins lineup Tuesday certainly looked like one worthy of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, their American Hockey League affiliate.

The Penguins appeared to claim the contest’s first lead at 14 minutes, 44 seconds of the first period, but a would-be goal by Penguins forward Brock McGinn off a rebound scramble was waved off after referee Conor O’Donnell appeared to blow a quick whistle.

Coach Mike Sullivan indicated he received a mea culpa after the sequence.

“The referee came over and said that he made a mistake,” Sullivan said. “He lost sight of the puck. He was on the back side of the goaltender. He didn’t see it. It was a quick whistle. I was appreciative of his honesty. That’s hockey. There’s a human element sometimes to it. Obviously, it would have been a big goal for us from a momentum standpoint.”

Following a combative first period that featured a combined 20 minutes of penalties and no (official) goals, the Lightning struck first 31 seconds into the second period.

Lightning forward Brayden Point burst into the offensive zone up the left wing on a two-on-one rush with teammate Anthony Cirelli against Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin. Opting to shoot, Point lifted a clever backhander over the right shoulder of goaltender Tristan Jarry on the near side for his third goal of the season. It was his team’s first lead in regulation this campaign.

“The chances we gave up were just too much,” Penguins defenseman John Marino said. “Obviously, they capitalized on those chances and once they do, it’s hard to come back from that.”

The Penguins appeared to put themselves in position for a comeback midway through the second period with a dominant shift in the offensive zone that lasted in excess of a minute. But quickly afterward, the visitors claimed a 3-0 lead like a bolt out of the blue via a two-goal outburst within a span of 10 seconds after surviving a few salvos by the hosts.

First, forward Ondrej Palat claimed his third goal at the 11:18 mark. After Dumoulin and Penguins forward Drew O’Connor failed to connect on a pass in the neutral zone, Lightning forward Alex Barre-Boulet fed the puck to Palat streaking into the Penguins’ zone. From above the right circle, Palat sizzled a wrister that toasted Jarry’s glove on the near side.

Almost immediately afterward, defenseman Ryan McDonagh claimed his first goal. Plowing through the right circle of the offensive zone and fending off a backcheck from O’Connor, Lightning forward Steven Stamkos veered behind the cage and fed a pass to the top of the left circle for McDonagh, who clapped a one-timer past Jarry’s glove on the far side.

“It was huge,” Penguins forward Jason Zucker said. “We had plenty of chances (on that sequence). We passed up too many shots in the grand scheme of the game. We were looking for one extra play multiple times. That was definitely a tough turn, especially when we thought we were playing pretty well there.”

After an empty-net goal by Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev at 16:55 of the third, Zucker broke up the shutout bid at the 16:44 mark by collecting his third goal, cleaning up a rebound with a forehand shot during a six-on-four power-play opportunity.

Lightning forward Alex Killorn capped the scoring with another empty-net score at the 18:55 mark for his fourth goal of the season.

Jarry made 26 saves on 29 shots as his record fell to 3-1-1 and his team failed to gain a point in the standings for the first time in six games.

“Could we have done a few things differently?” Sullivan asked rhetorically. “Probably. But you could probably say that about a lot of things. I thought our team competed hard. We put ourselves in position to win the hockey game. I don’t think the score was an indication of how close the game was. We had a lot of real good looks. We just couldn’t find the back of the net.”