The Tampa Bay Lightning failed to close out 2017 with a win as the Philadelphia Flyers defeated them 5-3. This game wasn’t pretty, folks. Special teams were the name of the game and Tampa Bay failed in that category.
Both Tampa and Philadelphia were on the latter half of back-to-backs and only one of these teams looked like it (spoiler alert, it was Tampa Bay). The Flyers came out aggressive and controlled the first half of the opening period by locking down the boards and refusing to let the Lightning cleanly clear their defensive zone.