Playing With Four Defensemen, The Tampa Bay Lightning Defeated The LA Kings
from Mari Faiello of the Tampa Bay Times,
The self-proclaimed Tampa Bay “Find-A-Ways” found a way, once again, when the odds were stacked against them.
Tuesday against the Kings, injuries to three of their defensemen — Jan Rutta, Erik Cernak and Zach Bogosian — forced the Lightning to start their three-game west coast swing with just 16 skaters.
But the team’s tenacity and heavy puck possession made the difference in a 6-4 win in Los Angeles.
“(We’ve faced) adversity with guys getting hurt, adversity within the game,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “You can look at some of the bounces that went against us, and guys just kept fighting, battling, showed a lot of emotion. ... (We) just executed and closed them out.”
To remain salary-cap compliant — the team is maxed out at $81.5 million with 22 players — the Lightning were forced to play without a full active roster since none of the missing players (Rutta, Cernak, Bogosian and forward Ondrej Palat) will go on long-term injured reserve, which requires players to miss 10 games and 24 days....
“You can look at it two ways,” Hedman said. “You can look at it and feel sorry for yourself or you can look at it as an opportunity, and that’s how we approached it (Tuesday).”
Hedman contributed three points, including the opening goal in the first period, the primary assist on Nikita Kucherov’s second-period goal and the go-ahead goal in the third. His 32:37 of ice time led the team, 3:19 more than McDonagh.
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Watch the game highlights below....
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