Lightning Blow 3-0 Lead, Lose to Blue Jackets 4-3

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are upon us, where it no longer matters what you did in the regular season, and everyone is 0-0 and has an equal shot at the outset of winning the whole thing.

The Tampa Bay Lightning skated away from the rest of the league basically from the beginning of the season, winning 62 games and tying the all time record for regular season wins and getting the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference; Tampa Bay would also have home ice in the Finals if it gets that far. The Lightning are matched up in Round 1 with the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team that won fifteen fewer games than Tampa Bay and had to scratch its way into the playoffs, just making it as the #2 Wild Card in the East, which is the lowest seed in the conference. The two began their first round series in Tampa on April 10th.

The Lightning were the top scoring team in the NHL this season, and picked up right where they left off, scoring three times in the first period. Nick Foligno scored for Columbus in the second period to make it 3-1. Then in the third period, David Savard scored at the 7:56 mark, Josh Anderson scored a short handed goal at 11:54 to tie it, and Seth Jones scored a power play goal at 14:05 to give Columbus the lead, which it did not relinquish, and the Blue Jackets won Game 1 of the best of seven series by a score of 4-3.

Sergei Bobrovsky had 26 saves for Columbus. The Blue Jackets kept Tampa Bay’s two top scorers, Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, off the score sheet. The Lightning easily swept the three game regular season series over the Blue Jackets, winning 8-2, 4-0, and 5-1. Overconfidence perhaps?

Game 2 is April 12th in Tampa.