Break Doesn't Benefit Lightning Against Coyotes

Three days of hanging out at a desert golf resort may have dried out the Lightning.

With a rare three-day break in a road schedule, the Lightning opted to use the time for team togetherness. Instead, they looked a little unraveled for good stretches of Thursday's 3-2 loss to Phoenix.

Kyle Turris scored the game-winner on a deflection at 8:09 of the third.

"I'm really disappointed in the team right now, it's unacceptable. ... We have three days off, we never showed up, that's terrible," Lightning interim coach Rick Tocchet said. "That's probably the most disappointed I've been as coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning - after giving the guys three days off like that."

Andrej Meszaros put the Lightning on the board first 8:36 into the game with his first goal in 61 games. After Jeff Halpern won a faceoff clean back to Meszaros at the right point, Meszaros fired a shot that caromed off the near post and deflected off the back of Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and into the net, giving the Lightning defenseman his first goal since Feb. 21. It also took Meszaros off the list of having the most shots in the league without scoring a goal, a streak that stopped on his 67th shot of the season.

It went downhill from there, first when Olli Jokinen - who seems to torment the Lightning no matter what uniform he wears - went streaking past Meszaros to take a perfect feed from Shane Doan to cut in on Lightning goalie Mike Smith. Though Smith poke-checked the puck off Jokinen's stick, it deflected off Jokinen's legs and then the far post before landing in the net at 12:17.

The Coyotes took over the game from that point and took the lead 15 seconds after Meszaros was called for hooking when Doan's slap shot from the left circle deflected up off the shoulder of Smith, allowing Peter Mueller to get a quick swipe at it to ensure it went into the net 46 seconds into the second period.

Though Halpern tied the game on a power-play goal with 5:17 left in the second period to give some momentum back to the Lightning, it didn't sustain. Tampa Bay closed out the game looking like it had spent too much time in the sun, managing two shots on goal through the first half of the third period and mustering six shots total.

"It's 60 minutes, we come out looking pretty good and then we stopped doing the things that we were doing early on. ... We stopped doing the things that made it easy for us early on," Halpern said.