Carolina Hurricanes crush Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 – NHL Update
The unfortunate tale of the Tampa Bay Lightning continues as Carolina Hurricanes handed them a crushing defeat, 5-2, on Thursday, January 12, 2012, at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida, stretching their losing streak to five games now.
The game was pretty much one-sided after the Hurricanes exploded in the first period, in which they scored four goals, while their opponents could score only one.
Tampa Bay's coach, Guy Boucher, was disappointed over the loss, but the first period slump tormented him even more.
"I would say this is the hardest one to take this year", Boucher regretted.
"We always talk about attitude first, work ethic and then discipline, and in the first period we had none of those".
"I don't think we're being very respectful to teams like Carolina, or anybody else that is a little bit lower in the standings than the top-three teams in the conference. We can't have that, period. We're not in a position to think that we're better than
any other team", Boucher added.
The Hurricanes started their aggressive outburst right from the start.
Carolina scored two goals in the opening five minutes of the game to get the lead.
Tampa Bay’s goalie, Mathieu Garon, saved a shot from Jiri Tlusty, but could not prevent the puck from reaching the net when Tuomo Ruutu fired a short, seven seconds later.
Garon saved another shot before Hurricanes’ captain, Eric Staal, attempted for glory, but his shot unfortunately hit the post instead of going in.
Capitalising on the rebound, Tlusty stepped up to give the Hurricanes a two-goal lead.
Nearly 10 minutes later, Nate Thompson utilised a breakaway and went on unassisted to score a goal for Tampa Bay.
The next two minutes, however, put pressure on Tampa Bay.
Firstly, it was Harrison who scored a goal, which forced Tampa Bay to replace goalie, Garon, by Dwayne Roloson.
The change of faces did not work well for the host as the Hurricanes scored another goal in the period, soon after the replacement.
After making repeated attempts to score a goal, Tampa Bay finally managed to reduce the deficit in the second period when Teddy Purcell scored a goal at 2:49, assisted by Bruno Gervais and Steven Stamkos.
The comeback was not a possibility for Tampa Bay and another goal by the Hurricanes in the final period ensured victory for the latter.
Tampa Bay Lightning failed to recover from the early slump, which was the main cause of their failure.
Hoping to snap the losing streak, they are now going to take on Washington Capitals on Friday.
On the other hand, Carolina Hurricanes got a welcome victory after losing their last two games and are now going to be facing Boston Bruins on Saturday.
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