In terms of flow of play, this was a very strange game. After a evenly-played scoreless first period, momentum swung to the Lightning in the second. Jonathan Marchessault scored at the 11:11 mark and the Lightning dominated the rest of the frame. But despite their territorial advantage, they couldn’t add to their lead. After Marchessault’s goal, the Blue Jackets had hardly any offensive zone time for the rest of the period. But on one of their rare offensive zone sequences, they got a goal from Brandon Dubinsky to tie the score at 16:46.
Then, in the third, even though the Lightning broke the tie with a Brian Boyle shorthanded goal, they were unable to maintain any of their second period momentum.