The Backcheck: Bolts drop close, intense game to Bruins

The Tampa Bay Lightning entered Saturday's matinee contest with the Boston Bruins needing effort, passion and commitment. And while the Bolts lost the game 2-1, they showed a lot of what this team needs for the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs.

Nine seconds into the game, the gloves were off as a scrap between Ross Colton and Jakub Lauko sparked things before Pat Maroon and Garnet Hathaway found each other for an extended tilt in front of the benches.
Tampa Bay ended up with an extra two minutes of penalty time and went to the penalty kill, which they had to do a ton during the opening 20 minutes. The Lightning were able to get the penalty killed off, but took two more minor penalties over the first 5:33 of the game before Boston capitalized and made it 1-0.
But even on the go-ahead goal scored by Patrice Bergeron, the Bolts were doing the right things. Victor Hedman had Bergeron tied up in front of the net and had taken away his stick, but a pass from Brad Marchand ricocheted off the skate of Bergeron and got behind Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Playing with fire, Tanner Jeannot sent the Bruins back to the power play, this time a four-minute man advantage, when he was whistled for a double minor high-sticking penalty at the 8:19 mark of the first.
At a huge moment in the game, Tampa Bay needed their leaders to step up and Hedman placed the responsibility on his shoulders, tying the game with his first career shorthanded goal 1:11 into Boston's power play.
The play started when Pierre-Edouard Bellemare made a heady, patient play in the neutral zone to hold the puck before finding Killorn near the Boston blue line. After Killorn entered the offensive zone, he sent a pass towards Bellemare, who quickly adjusted, got his blade on the puck, and directed it to Hedman, who hammered a slap shot from the top of the circle that got redirected off the stick of Charlie McAvoy and beat Linus Ullmark top shelf.
The Bolts carried that intensity into the middle frame and continued to play hard, but the Bruins would regain the one-goal lead when Garnet Hathaway was left unchecked in front of the net and pounced on a rebound in front of Vasilevskiy to put Boston up 2-1 with 2:28 remaining in the second.
Entering the third period trailing by one, the Lightning continued to push, but just couldn't find a way to get another shot past Ullmark before falling by a final score of 2-1.

Playing against the NHL's top team that has been setting records throughout the year, the Bolts' game packed a punch. They were engaged from the second the puck hit the ice and just couldn't find a way to tie the game against a Boston team that's now 41-1-2 when leading after two periods this season.
"The loss doesn't feel great, but that kind of passion I think is what we've missed a little bit," said Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. "That was awesome to watch, awesome to play. I think that was a great answer from those two games that we had before. Everyone checked in right away. It was a good game."
There are losses throughout the season that teams can walk away from and still feel good about what happened. This should be one of those games for the Lightning. If they can play that same way moving forward, they'll undoubtedly be a tough out.
"Sometimes I would rather lose and play this way than win and play in a crappy way because, eventually, it's going to bite you back," said Bellemare. "It's tough to say it's a great loss, but at the end of the day, we showed up with way more emotion, way more passion.
"Everybody tried to chip in and pull the rope in the same way as everybody else. That's my overall take.
"Just understand that if we play like this, we're going to be a nightmare to meet."
The Bolts will face another tough test in their next game with a contest against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena on Tuesday.
But for the first time since February 21, the team will actually have multiple days between games. Over the past 33 days, the Lightning skated in 19 games, the most over a 33-day stretch in franchise history. The team also played four back-to-backs during that stretch.
Tampa Bay will enjoy a well-deserved day off Sunday before hitting the ice for practice on Monday. The team will then fly to Raleigh to battle Carolina on Tuesday night. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. ET.