Through their first three games last season the Tampa Bay Lightning lost two of them. It was early in the season so there was no need to panic, but the fact that they had surrendered eleven 5v5 goals (14 overall) was worrisome. There were plenty of reasons to justify it – Andrei Vasilevskiy was on injured reserve, they were adjusting to a new set of defensive players, two of the games were on the road, etc. They would eventually get their act together and make the playoffs, but their struggles with 5v5 lingered for the entire season as they allowed 190 on the season, the fifth most in the league.
A return to strong 5v5 play has the Tampa Bay Lightning off to a 3-0 start
