Putting together a big winning streak is often about taking advantage of good luck and shaking off the bad bounces.
Thursday was a great example of that, as the Tampa Bay Lightning showed some resiliency (yet also exploited their situation) to beat the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1. With that, the Lightning have now won seven straight games while bringing the Blackhawks’ franchise-record 12-game winning run to an end.
The Lightning are one win shy of their own club record of eight straight wins.
The @TBLightning extended their win streak to 7 games - 1 shy of tying their franchise record - and ended Chicago's win streak at 12 games.
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) January 22, 2016
The bad bounce: Just 43 seconds into the game, Artem Anisimov scored a 1-0 goal to give Chicago the lead.
Taking advantage of the situation: Even so, the Lightning managed to grind out a win, taking advantage of a less-than-ideal Blackhawks lineup (which introduced Rob Scuderi, occasional winger).
Tampa Bay imposed its will, most obviously seen in the 33-18 shots on goal differential.
Two big contributors in the Bolts’ winning streak came up big tonight; Nikita Kucherov scored the game-winner for his 20th goal of the season and Ben Bishop shook off that Anisimov tally, improving to 19-13-3 on the season.
So, sometimes it’s also about your big guns coming through, too ...