TAMPA, Fla. _ The Devils came into Tampa Bay hoping to exorcise their playoff demons and rewrite the narrative against a team that overpowered them in the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But they failed to flip the script and the Lighting proved to be much the same team they were in the spring: An overpowering offensive team who can roll four lines and step on the throats of their opponents.
A loss of control would be an understatement. It was an ugly 8-3 thumping by the Lightning on Tuesday night at Amalie Arena, a disastrous start to a seven-game road trip.
Kyle Palmieri gave the Devils their only chance to reclaim some momentum when he banked a shot off a defender for a power play goal with 3:13 left in the second period. But an embarrassing three-goal third ensued for the Lightning.
Keith Kinkaid was pulled after allowing a career-worst seven goals and Cory Schneider immediately gave one up. Kinkaid made 31 saves and faced 38 shots. Schneider, playing in his first game of the season, stopped five of six shots faced.
The line that gave the Devils fits during the postseason of Brayden Point, Yanni Gourde and Tyler Johnson combined for 10 points.
The Devils tilted the ice early going up 2-0 in just over the first five minutes of play. But it tilted right back in favor of the home team later in the period with Braydon Coburn scoring twice. The two teams ended up knotted at 2-2 after the first 20 minutes.
Once it was tilted, it didn't tilt back. The Lightning scored five straight goals before New Jersey answered just one and then they went on to score three more.
A bad power play did the Devils no favors in the final minutes of the first period. A bouncing puck got behind Kinkaid and Point jammed the rebound in off the post 31 seconds into the second period.
The wheels came off around the time Blake Coleman's stick clipped Ryan McDonagh, at the 4:39 mark of the second. McDonagh's blood resulted in a double-minor for Coleman, one of the Devils' best penalty killers. Right after Kinkaid made a highlight-reel stop on a sharp-angle shot from Nikita Kucherov, the forward got the puck back on his stick and capitalized, putting Tampa Bay up 4-2.
With Coleman still in the box, Zajac was whistled for a slash giving one of the top power play teams in the league a two-man advantage. Steven Stamkos scored his 250th goal at 8:08, making it 5-2.
Palmieri's power play goal made it 5-3.
Wood made it 1-0 just 61 seconds into the game when he redirected Zajac's shot past Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (27 saves).
Zajac made it 2-0 when he went five-hole on a breakaway at 5:04 and for a brief moment, it looked as though the Devils would rewrite the script against the team that eliminated them unceremoniously in Game 5 of the first round of the postseason.
But the lead was quickly erased as Coburn scored his less than two minutes later at the 7:30 mark.
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