The Tampa Bay Lightning, who were one game short of reaching the Stanley Cup last season, traveled across the state to Orlando to face the St. Louis Blues for the second time in two days.
The Lightning lost for the second consecutive night, falling 4-3 to the Blues in NHL preseason action Wednesday night in the first ever hockey game played at Amway Center.
After losing 3-1 in St. Louis last night, the Lightning hosted the first ever hockey game played at the new state-of-the-art Amway Center. The attendance was quite impressive for a preseason hockey game, with 11,688 fans coming out to support.
The offensive-friendly night started off with the St. Louis Blues defenseman Nikita Nikitin scoring on a power play goal off an assist by right wing Chris Stewart.
Martin St.Louis anchored the Lightning offense in the first period and beginning of the second period, getting four early shots on goal. However, it wasn’t until a Lightning power play at 15:30 in the second period that Marc-Andre Bergeron scored off an assist by Bruno Gervais and Blair Jones.
Just over two minutes later, the Blues countered the Lightning’s goal with Defenseman Ian Cole scoring to give the Blues a 2-1 lead.
The same script for Tampa Bay unfurled in the third period when the Lightning managed to even the score off a power play goal by Cory Conacher. This time, the Blues did not let two minutes pass before they once again took the lead off a Chris Stewart goal to give them a 3-2 advantage.
The Lightning did not let this deter them, with Eric Brewer evening the score at 3-3 with six minutes remaining in the final period.
Once again, the Blues did not let the tie last more than three minutes. Right wing Adam Cracknell scored on an unassisted goal at 17:40 in the third period to put the St. Louis Blues up 4-3.
The Cracknell goal proved to be the game winner for St. Louis, who beat the Tampa bay on back-t0-back nights.
The Lightning are now 0-2 in the preseason, but they will look to secure their first win when they go back home to the St. Pete Times Forum on September 23rd to take on the Florida Panthers.
