Not vintage Lightning performance, but winning is important

TAMPA — It was kind of ugly, but in a totally evocative way.

The Lightning lost to the Islanders on Saturday night. in tons. They gave out more pucks and got beaten, early on he blew one lead and already he nearly blew one lead at the end.

Still, by the end of the night, the Lightning celebrated a 5-3 victory and were back in .500 after starting the season with three losses in four games.

“We didn’t run,” said coach John Cooper. “I thought we were very opportunistic.

“But with that said, you have to find a way to win when you’re not doing your best. And the islanders, they threw everything at us. But when you don’t have an ‘A’ game, you need to get some points and we did it (Saturday night).

Sometimes it’s better to be gritty than cute.

And Lightning certainly fits the bill on Saturday. They scored after a puck battle behind the net, scored on the rebound, and scored after a big hit into the neutral zone.

Perhaps most importantly, we failed to score against Stephen Stamkos. Nor did I have to resort to power plays.

While not unwelcoming contributions from captains and special teams, the Lightning relied heavily on both during the first two weeks of the season. The Lightning scored more power plays than he did 5-for-5 in his first five games, with Stamkos accounting for more than half of the scoring.

On the night, the Lightning scored every goal in even-strength situations from five different players, including Alex Killone, who had gone scoreless in 33 straight games, including the playoffs.

“It’s certainly taken a weight off my shoulders,” Killone said. “I start to think that I may never score in the NHL like I do now.

“I wasn’t going to be denied. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever shot a puck.”

Players from all four lines, including Braden Point, Brandon Hegel, Corey Perry and Nick Paul, contributed to the scoring and joined Kilawn on the scoresheet.

But it was the moments in front of goal that mattered most.

It was Hegel who went behind the net to win the fight with Scott Mayfield and got the puck on Nikita Kucherov.

Kneeling behind the net to win the puck fight, Perry stood up and planted himself to the right of goaltender Ilya Sorokin. Pat Maroon transferred the puck to Pierre-Edouard Bellmare, who crossed the crease and let Perry score the goal.

Kohl Koepke drove Nikita Soshnikov into the neutral zone to score on pole with a tenth of a second left.

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“We knew we had to step up 5-on-5. Basically, we couldn’t keep relying on power plays and stammers,” Paul said. “We knew, as a group, we had to create more of a 5-on-5 offense that would either withstand the rush and get the puck closer to the net or just win the fight and go east-west and hit the O-zone. Regardless of whether it actually works.”

In retrospect, it was pretty impressive considering the conditions weren’t in Tampa Bay’s favor when the night started. Without defenseman Eric Cernak, who suffered an upper body injury Friday night against the Panthers, Elliott got off to a rare start in place of Andrei Vasilevskiy.

They are also the only team in the Eastern Conference not to win at home, with Cooper describing the start of the season as an “oil leak”. Besides, they’re about to embark on his five-day, three-game trip to the West Coast.

All in all, the potential for disappointment was great.

Yet Lightning survived many of its shortcomings by being opportunistic and tenacious when it mattered most.

“(Saturday) it was a big (goal) to create more 5-on-5 offense,” Cooper said. “I’m not sure if I was in the zone by a ton[on Saturday]but I did a lot of good things and scored goals every time I went in. That’s what you want in your guys.”

Contact John Romano at: jromano@tampabay.comFollow @romano_tbtimes.

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