The Tampa Bay Lightning will try again Saturday to earn their first win, just as the visiting New Jersey Devils will, coming off an opening night that rang hollow for both.
Coach Jon Cooper’s offensive-minded bunch, which was the top-scoring NHL team last season, sprinted out to a 2-0 lead seven minutes into the season. But Ottawa outplayed the home team over the final two periods, outshooting Tampa 21-11 and going almost 19 minutes without firing a shot on Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark.
After a turnover by the Lightning’s Darren Raddysh, Shane Pinto scored his second goal following a hard charge by Jake Sanderson on goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy with 1:47 remaining, resulting in a defeat that left Tampa Bay with a 21-10-2 record in season openers.
Cooper said the excitement of a first game, especially at home, “never gets old,” but it was the first outing of 82 games.
“That (loss) is more on us than (Ottawa), that was the disappointing part,” Cooper said after his team squandered a pair of two-goal leads. “To be honest, it was Game 1. I don’t know if our execution was there as that game went on. And when you don’t execute, it makes you look kind of slow.
“(But) yeah, that’s a cardinal sin to be at home and … give it up with two minutes left. But it was creeping up on us. In the third period we really had nothing going on either way.”
However, Tampa Bay’s deadly power play looked to be in peak form, scoring twice in three chances as Oliver Bjorkstrand and Nikita Kucherov hit the twine.
Facing a familiar foe in the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday, the Devils couldn’t handle the home team’s aggressive forecheck, which used its speed to take a 3-2 lead that they then blew just like the Lightning did at home.
Yet New Jersey could not muster any more goals after Jesper Bratt tied it with just over eight minutes to play. Carolina’s Seth Jarvis scored twice, and Eric Robinson added a third for a 6-3 win to hand the Devils an opening-night setback.
Coach Sheldon Keefe said there was a huge gap in intensity from what his club saw in the preseason to what it experienced in Raleigh — apparently too much to overcome for his group.
“It was what you expect when you play Carolina in terms of the pressure and all that,” the second-year Devils bench boss said. “It’s a tough assignment coming in for their home opener. It’s a major about-face from preseason to this. I like the fight of our guys to keep coming back, but we were the second-best team all night long.”
The Hurricanes’ forecheck was suffocating.
“You’ve just got to break out,” Keefe said plainly of his Devils being trapped in their defensive zone. “You’ve got to get to the neutral zone.”
Remaining calm under pressure is key.
“They’re a hard forechecking team, same with a lot of teams in the league,” said the top-line right winger Bratt. “You have to have that poise, be comfortable putting someone on your back and spin around. Sometimes the easy play is just to get it out in the neutral zone … and kind of tire them out.”
Dougie Hamilton and Cody Glass also scored goals, but New Jersey was outshot 33-22.
