Hurricanes suffer 5-3 loss to Lightning

RALEIGH, N.C. – The Carolina Hurricanes ended their weekend with a 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at PNC Arena on Sunday.

Just when it looked as though the pieces were finally falling into place for Carolina, particularly following an energetic 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers the night before, Tampa Bay goaltender Ben Bishop stole the  the game while making a career-high 48 saves in doing so.

Alexander Semin scored goals in consecutive games for the first time this season, following up on his two-goal performance from Saturday.

Line mate and captain Eric Staal also finished with a goal and an assist, tallying his fourth multi-point game in his last six played.

However, three goals against in the first period put the Hurricanes back too far to be able to catch up for the remainder of the game, particularly with Bishop literally standing in the way.

For Carolina coach Kirk Muller, the effort was there with a lot of positives coming out of a game that saw his team experience some defensive lapses that they couldn’t recover from.

“Nobody quit,” Muller said.

“We were down early and all that. After that, there were a lot of things that were better in the game tonight. No one quit. You get almost a 50-mark with shots, scoring opportunities and chances. Our big line is really comin’ together and had a great game. It is just unfortunate of the outcome. There were a lot of good things.”

Carolina came out firing on all cylinders and put pucks towards Bishop early and often for the first five minutes of play while the Lightning did so only intermittently on Hurricanes starting netminder Justin Peters.

However, at the 4:32 mark, Riley Nash took a clipping penalty that subsided the Hurricanes’ offensive momentum after building up an 8-1 shooting output on Bishop.

The man-advantage gave Tampa Bay the opportunity to get its offense going and no time was wasted in doing so.

With 33 seconds remaining in Nash’s penalty, the Lightning’s Mark Barberio scored his first NHL goal as he sat at the top of Peter’s crease and tucked a pass from Alex Kilorn into the net to open the game’s scoring.

Still maintaining possession and the tempo they built up during their power play, Martin St. Louis then led a rush into the Carolina zone and threaded a pass into the slot to Ondrej Palat who beat Peters with a quick one-timer and extended the Tampa Bay lead to 2-0 just over a minute later.

The Lightning kept up their forechecking energy and established puck possession again and added their third goal from Nikita Kucherov at the 15:07 mark of the period.

As a result of letting in his third goal on eight shots faced, Muller pulled Peters from the net to make way for Anton Khudobin who tended the net for the rest of the game.

Even while Peters had a rough beginning in assuming his first start since a 4-3 overtime loss to Pittsburgh on Dec. 27, Muller was supportive of the keeper who he said will be important in playing during the team’s remaining games before the Olympic break.

“If there’s a player this year that’s defied the odds, it’s probably Justin,” Muller said.

“If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have been in the playoff race. He’s played some really good hockey for us and played some big games and won some big games for us. At the start of the year he wasn’t even with the hockey club and not even in an exhibition game, but he stayed with it. He’s a big part of the team this year, he deserves to play, and he’s beat all those odds. I think he’s just gonna’ forget this one and get ready to go. He’s a big part of this hockey team.”

As Tampa Bay carried its three-goal lead into the second period, it only took 24 seconds after the puck dropped to add another goal to it.

Lightning defenseman Radko Gudas took a shot wide of the Carolina net, and as the puck deflected quickly off the yellow kick plate on the end boards, it slid between Khudobin’s legs while he ventured out of his crease to play it.

With the puck sliding into the crease, Teddy Purcell got away from the clutches of Hurricanes defenseman Justin Faulk and tapped the puck into the net.

Trailing 4-0, Carolina finally beat Bishop 82 seconds later when Semin picked the puck up deep in the Carolina end and initiated an rink-long rush into the Tampa Bay zone.

As Semin picked up his pace on rounding into the corner to Bishop’s right, Lightning defenseman Jean-Philippe Cote tried to turn to stay with the streaking Russian forward, but when he did Semin was already set to shoot and beat Bishop high over his glove hand to score Carolina’s first goal of the game.

As the Hurricanes continued to maintain their trapping and forechecking pressure, they got another chance to score on Bishop four minutes later.

Eric Staal stole the puck from Cote at center ice and turned with it to head towards the Lightning zone.

As he gained the blue line on a two-on-one with Jeff Skinner who was on the left wing, Staal had only Lightning defenseman Matt Carle to beat, so he waited until he reached the top left corner of the slot to capitalize on his opportunity to score.

At that point, he snapped a low shot with which the puck barely hovered above the ice and found space between Bishop’s pads and found the back of the net to narrow the Lightning lead to 4-2.

Tampa Bay continued to maintain its fair share of puck possession in the Carolina end, and as the puck emerged from behind Khudobin’s net, Barberio took a slap shot from the top of the circle that deflected off defenseman Andrej Sekera’s stick and ended up in the top corner of the net.

The goal gave Tampa Bay its three-goal lead back, sitting at 5-2 with 11:48 left to play.

For the remainder of the period, both Khudobin and Bishop were kept busy, with the Lightning netminder being pelted with numerous shots while maintaining his team’s comfortable three-goal cushion heading into the final period.

After six minutes of scoreless play in the third, defenseman Ron Hainsey brought Carolina one goal closer at the 6:14 mark.

Hainsey deposited the puck into an open net after Bishop gave up a big rebound from a point shot that John-Michael Liles released on a set-up pass from Jiri Tlusty.

The Hurricanes pulled Khudobin from the net with just under three minutes to play.

Carolina wouldn’t find the back of the net for the rest of the game even with the extra attacker on the ice.

With 2:18 remaining, Semin picked up the puck in the low slot and tried to pick the top corner, but Bishop got his arm on the shot while bodies fell everywhere around him in his crease.

The puck bounced in the air and hit the cross bar before dropping to the ice allowing Bishop to smother it.

It was that kind of game and ending for Carolina as the Lightning keeper continued to make one stop after another until the final horn sounded.

“It was a tough night,” Staal said.

“We had a good start. What we wanted to do was throw pucks at the net. Unfortunately, you take a penalty and they capitalize right away and then an odd-man rush and all those goals that could deflate you, they capitalized on. We didn’t sulk. We continued to work and compete, and had a lot of other chances and fought hard to try to get back into it. We weren’t able to get it done.”