Last night was another one of those games that, judged by the final score, wasn’t close. But a few late Tampa Bay Lightning goals (two empty netters) and a couple open nets missed early on by the Carolina Hurricanes made it a closer game than the score indicates.
Especially in the first period, Carolina made Andrei Vasilevskiy move around in the Tampa Bay crease and forced him to clean up rebounds, but couldn’t capitalize on the chances presented. Most memorably, Elias Lindholm flung a wrister off the post that would have given the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead and some serious momentum against arguably the best team in hockey right now.