Lightning fall to Predators in Monday matinee - Tampa Bay Times

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TAMPA — The Lightning were on the wrong end of some unlucky bounces and untimely turnovers against the Nashville Predators Monday afternoon at Amalie Arena.

And after Tampa Bay’s 4-1 loss, its second in three games, Jon Cooper ensured the sky wasn’t falling on the defending Stanley Cup champions.

“Everybody’s like, holy cow, you lose a game and the world’s caving in,” the Lightning coach said. “I look back at our last two losses. “Our scoring chances were nearly two to one, and we’ve had some pretty good zone time and we’ve done some good things. We just got beat.”

The Lightning had beaten Nashville in each of their previous five meetings this season, three times with goaltender Pekka Rinne in net. But this time Rinne prevailed, recording 38 saves and frustrating the Lightning shooters.

In each of the Lightning’s past two losses, they fell victim to the turnover bug. Nashville took advantage of some Tampa Bay miscues with three second-period goals. Still, the Lightning had 32 scoring chances against Rinne, at least nine in each period, so opportunities were there.

Luckily for them, the Lightning won’t have time to think about the loss. They hopped on a flight to Dallas after the game for a road game against the Stars Tuesday night to continue a stretch of five games in seven days.

“It’s a hard game,” Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli said. “You’re not gonna be perfect for 60 minutes, and I think if we could limit the turnovers that we had and just fix a couple things in the D zone — we’ll go through some video (Tuesday) and clean up some stuff — we’ll be ready for tomorrow’s game.”

The Lightning continued to struggle with backup Curtis McElhinney in net, going 7-9-2 in his last 18 starts dating back to last season. Though to be fair, the number of breakaways the Lightning allowed on Monday left McElhinney (who stopped 22 of 25 shots) in a tough situation.

A fluke play led to a shorthanded goal that put Nashville up 3-0 with 8:14 left in the second period. Mattias Ekholm cleared a puck from behind the Nashville end line and Lightning forward Brayden Point reached in the air with his stick to try to keep the puck in the zone. But the deflection gifted a breakaway goal for Calle Jarnkrok, who also had three assists.

“Pointer’s natural reaction is to knock the puck in the air and he does it, and it happens to go under a stick for a breakaway,” Cooper said. “What are the chances that’s going to happen?”

Tampa Bay went 0-for-3 against a Nashville penalty kill that ranked 31st in the league and had allowed goals on its past four penalty-kill situations.

Predators rookie Eeli Tolvanen scored first, taking advantage of a 3-on-2 rush and unloading a wrister from the left circle past McElhinney just under four minutes into the second period. The Predators scored again when Erik Haula fed Viktor Arvidsson after whiffing on a shot in front of the net and Arvidsson rocketed a one-timer from the left circle.

Lightning captain Steven Stamkos prevented a shutout by scoring with just under 10 minutes remaining, his shot deflecting off Nashville defenseman Dante Fabbro’s skate and into the net.

Ekholm added an empty-netter with 20 seconds remaining to make it 4-1.

Defenseman Victor Hedman had one of the Lightning’s best opportunities early, juking Rinne to give himself a backhanded shot inside the post. But Fabbro blocked Hedman’s shot with his stick before it could cross the goal line.

Point and Ondrej Palat had several good looks, but Rinne stoned them at every turn, once when Palat deflected a puck high off the ice that the 6-foot-5 Rinne had to reach up and snare out of the air with his glove.

“There’s been other times this year that we’ve probably not played as well as the other team and we won some games,” Cooper said. “It’s just when you’re gonna play 56 to 82 games in a season, some of these are going to happen. Our process has been fine.”

Contact Eduardo A. Encina at eencina@tampabay.com Follow @EddieInTheYard.

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