Lightning suffer a letdown, lose to Jets

At some point, sustaining winning ways was going to be difficult for the Lightning.

With three players traded in the past week and captain Vinny Lecavalier out for an unspecified period of time with a broken bone in his right hand, Tampa Bay defied odds to carry a three-game winning streak into Thursday's key divisional meeting with Winnipeg.

The letdown finally came as the Jets steamrolled Tampa Bay to the tune of a 4-3 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 15,004 at MTS Centre. The game was dominated throughout by Winnipeg and was not as close as the score indicates.

Andrew Ladd had a goal and two assists, while Ondrej Pavelec stopped 22 shots for the victory. Steven Stamkos ended the shutout bid with a power-play goal 11 minutes into the third period, his league-leading 43{+r}{+d} of the season. Teddy Purcell scored with 53.4 seconds left and Marty St. Louis scored the Lightning's second power-play goal of the game with 8.9 seconds remaining.

While the loss is just the fourth in regulation for Tampa Bay in the past 16 games (10-4-2), it dropped the Lightning to seven points behind Winnipeg for the division lead and six points behind eighth-seeded Florida, which lost in a shootout to Minnesota on Thursday. Tampa Bay has 22 games remaining, and only two more before Monday's trade deadline.

If general manager Steve Yzerman had any hesitation about continuing a sell-off before the deadline, perhaps Thursday's showing might prove to be the final pin push to let the air out of the Lightning's playoff bubble.

From nearly the opening faceoff, Winnipeg looked to be in control of the game, while Tampa Bay had trouble getting out of its own way. The Lightning had issues getting the puck out of the defensive zone, fumbled passes all over the ice and failed to sustain any sort of offensive pressure. The Jets, meanwhile, used a strong forecheck to create turnovers that turned into scoring chances while pinning Tampa Bay in its zone for long stretches.

That's what happened on Winnipeg's first goal, as the Lightning struggled to clear the zone. From behind the goal line, Bryan Little found Ladd in the slot, and he managed to fire a one-timer past Mathieu Garon despite being covered by Stamkos. A little more than 2 minutes later, Winnipeg made it 2-0 with 5:01 left in the first period when Tanner Glass finished off a scramble in front pushing a puck into the crease while being pushed by Tom Pyatt.

The score held through the first period, but it didn't take long for Winnipeg to double its lead as the Jets scored a pair of power-play goals 72 seconds apart in the opening 3 minutes. Evander Kane fired a wrist shot home 1:36 into the period and Dustin Byfuglien put a slap shot into the net with Blake Wheeler setting a strong screen in front to make it 4-0 just 2:48 into the period. The Jets had been on a 2-for-29 power-play streak before scoring on seven consecutive chances in the past three games, including the first two on Thursday. The streak eventually came to an end late in the third.

That ended the night for Garon, who allowed four goals on 18 shots before he was replaced by Dwayne Roloson, who stopped all 16 shots he faced the rest of the game.

Stamkos ended the shutout bid when he converted a nifty backhand, through-the-legs pass from Ryan Malone for a power-play goal to make it 4-1 in the third period.

It was the 10th power-play goal on the road this season for Tampa Bay in 104 opportunities.