TAMPA, Fla. — If the Lightning are going far in the playoffs, they’re going to have to beat teams like the Bruins.
Friday’s game was the last of three this week against Eastern Conference contenders, and the Lightning needed a win after losing to Toronto and Washington.
Boston offers a superb measuring stick. The teams know each other well from previous playoff battles. In the regular season, they play tightly-contested games and seem to bring out the best in each other, not to mention the Bruins came to Tampa having won 10 of their last 13.
While there was a lot to like from Friday’s game — including the postseason feel — the Lightning lost, 2-1, on Charlie Coyle’s overtime goal with 1:23 left in the 3-on-3 session.
The Lightning have dropped four straight and lost three of their four meetings with Boston. Three of those games against the Bruins were decided by one goal.
The Lightning played a physical, heavy game Friday. The veteran “school bus” line of Pat Maroon, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Corey Perry helped establish that tone in the first period.
And after the Bruins put a Lightning turnover in their own zone in the back of the net on Jake DeBrusk’s goal 47 seconds into the second period, Bellemare answered with a tying goal 3:28 in.
Bellemare’s goal, his first in 18 games, came after Maroon’s takeaway at the blue line kept the puck in the Bruins zone. Perched down low behind the net, Perry made a centering pass to Bellemare, who wristed a shot top shelf past Boston goaltender Linus Ullmark.
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy had one of his best games in weeks, outlasting a flurry of Bruins scoring chances and some sloppy play in the Lightning zone.
DeBrusk’s goal came after Erik Cernak’s clear attempt ended up between the circles and Brad Marchand found DeBrusk down low.
Otherwise, Vasilevskiy survived a second period in which the Bruins outshot the Lightning 16-6.
The Lightning made a push in the third. Nikita Kucherov sprung Brayden Point for a breakaway, but he was denied by a superb Ullmark left pad save. Moments earlier, Cernak just missed with a shot off the post.
