Ottawa Senators' Milan Michalek highlights third period with hat trick against Tampa Bay Lightning 7-3
Milan Michalek became the shining star of the night for Ottawa as the Senators were leading by a single point entering the final period but his three back-to-back goals were the cherry on top in destroying Tampa Bay Lightning, 7-3, Tuesday night, March 6,
2012, at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Florida.
Tampa Bay not only lost the game but their goalie as well. Lightning goaltender, Mathieu Garon left the Tuesday night contest due to a lower-body injury early in the first period. The injury was suspected to be a groin related one and has not been confirmed
as of yet.
"It was tough seeing Garon get hurt," said Lightning’s Steven Stamkos. "He's been playing so well for us; he's given us a chance to win a lot of hockey games recently, so when he went down, obviously that's a blow. We were asleep the first period. There's
no one to blame but ourselves."
Dwayne Roloson did not look ready to come into the net for Garon but had no choice as Ottawa’s Sergei Gonchar, Colin Greening and Kyle Turris scored three straight in the opening period alone.
Tampa Bay attempted at rebounding in the second period with two consecutive on Senators’ newly acquired goalie, Ben Bishop, as Ryan Shannon and Tim Wallace scored but Erik Karlsson’s power play goal on the breakaway killed the momentum.
Steven Stamkos brought Tampa Bay within one of levelling the score 5:41 into the third for his league leading 48th goal of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season but what was awaiting them, Lightning could have never imagined.
Michalek kicked off his own scoring spree with the first on the power play, followed by another on the breakaway and the third and last to secure the match shorthanded on the turnaround with seven seconds remaining.
"That's great for him," Senators coach, Paul MacLean, said. "I think he's always been a player of that potential and the injuries that he's had kind of slowed him down. We're really happy for him. To reach that plateau, it's really a credit to him and his
hard work."
Ottawa has much to look forward to as they return home and face-off against Eastern Conference leaders, the New York Rangers, on Thursday.
Tampa Bay, losing their first in the past five, will be looking to rebound against Washington Capitals on the same day.
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