The Tampa Bay Lightning weren’t pleased with their play Monday night despite a 3-0 shutout victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
That performance looked downright Herculean compared to Thursday’s result against Montreal.
Tampa Bay, needing only a couple wins over its last six games to quality for the postseason for a third-straight season, lacked energy in a 3-0 loss to the Canadiens. Unlike Monday when goaltender Ben Bishop was able to bail the Bolts out with perhaps his best performance in a Vezina-worthy season, the Lightning had no answer for the Canadiens, who scored midway through the first period on a back-post rebound from David Desharnais, extended the lead to 2-0 when Torrey Mitchell blew past the Bolts’ defense on a drive to goal and added an empty-netter with two minutes and change to go to shut the door on any Tampa Bay comeback.