Bolts blanked by Anderson, Senators

The first leak in the Lightning's fleeting playoff hopes may have finally sprung on Tuesday night.

For all the talk about putting together playoff style hockey, Tampa Bay was unable to put forth that kind of an effort in a 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators in front of an announced crowd of 17,488 at The Forum.

Craig Anderson stopped 28 shots for Ottawa to pick up his 18th career shutout while Jason Spezza registered his fourth career hat trick and added an assist. The shutout loss is the second of the season for the Lightning, which lost, 3-0, in St. Louis on Nov. 12, and first on home ice since April 2, 2010 to the New York Rangers.

But this loss for Tampa Bay – the third this season against Ottawa – could prove devastating to what was already an outside chance at making the playoffs. Tampa Bay has just one victory in the past five games while missing out on opportunities to gain ground in the standings.

Instead they remain eight points out of the eighth spot and just one point ahead of Carolina for last in the Eastern Conference with three games remaining on a four-game homestand.

"We know how important these games are and for (Tuesday's) game to be 1-0 for as long as it was, it just seems that it's right there,'' captain Vinny Lecavalier said. "It's disappointing but we believe in what we can do, we are keeping our heads up. We can't sit back and do nothing about it. We just have to turn the page and play solid ... the next three home games are obviously very important.''

The Lightning will lament the three losses to Ottawa this season as Tampa Bay has had its fair share of opportunities – outshooting the Senators, 97-82 in the three games. However, the Lightning have managed to score just three goals against Anderson, who pulled out an old-school double-stack pad save to rob Teddy Purcell all alone in front in the first period to protect a 1-0 lead. Ottawa grabbed the lead as Erik Karlsson scored 64 seconds into the game.

The Purcell chance was one of a handful of scoring chances for the Lightning, which included a pair of first-period power play chances that came up empty to push Tampa Bay's power play slump to 7-for-72.

"We just couldn't score, again ... I guess we play against Ken Dryden when we play Ottawa,'' Lightning head coach Guy Boucher said. "That's three games in row we have open nets, wide open opportunities and either (Anderson) makes the save or we miss the net. We have more scoring opportunities today than we've had in the last two games so it's been a puzzle for us scoring against them.''

What's not a dilemma is where the team stands with 26 games remaining on the season – start winning or start packing for the summer.

"We all know what to do, it's just about executing,'' said winger Ryan Malone, back in the lineup after missing eight games with an upper body injury.