Lightning look to turn things around ahead of 4 Nations break

It’s been a tough stretch for the Tampa Bay Lightning as of late. The team is holding on to the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference after losing four of their last five games.

The Lightning have always vocalized how much they love playing in front of their fans. They hoped a return to Amalie Arena would lead to better results against Chicago on Tuesday night. The reality that they're facing right now is that a star-powered offense, one that’s stacked with future hall of famers, is currently struggling to score goals, and it’s not for lack of opportunity.

“Obviously, you don't want to be going through adversity all the time,” said Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli. “But in the season that we had 62 wins, we didn’t face any adversity until we got into the playoffs. Then we're down one game, two games… we didn't really go through anything like that in the regular season. I think this makes the guys closer, kind of experiencing some tough times here that we know we can get out of.”

Tampa Bay's record for January is an uncharacteristic 6-8-1. The month included four sets of back-to-back games, two of them happening in a quick six-day span with 10 games on the road. The team started January with a .618 points percentage and with one game left, they're right at .561 percent overall.

While there’s no doubt the schedule has been brutal for Tampa Bay, the players don't want that to be an excuse for the lack of results.

“I mean, every team's got to go through it,” said Cirelli. “Obviously, it's hard, right? You know, the past month.. with the amount of games and playing those back-to-backs.. but every team's got to go through that.”

The frequency of games combined with the travel in January has eliminated the Lightning’s ability to hold regular practices. One of the few practices they’ve had this month happened on Wednesday morning ahead of their 16th game on Thursday against the LA Kings.

“We all knew it coming into the start of the season, then they added the Carolina game, which was supposed to be our couple of days off in between,” said Brandon Hagel. “So I mean, it’s not fun, it's not great.. but every team goes through it. We got through it.”

“It's just one of those things.. find a way every night. You’ve got to come here every single day, ready to work. Off days, practice, whatever.. come ready to work. And we all know that we have each other here.”

An area that both Cirelli and Hagel feel they can improve on is how they play in the first 20 minutes. Whether it's from the obvious physical nature of their schedule or just the overall performance by some of their recent opponents, the team isn't scoring early like they were just one month ago.

“I think a big thing that we can continue to get better on are our starts,” said Cirelli. “Over the past month, it hasn't been great, our first periods. That'd be huge for us to come out in front of our fans, with the building rocking, and just come out hard. Come out ready to play, getting to our structure early and then going from there.”

The Lightning were only able to score once against Chicago, a team that has remained at the bottom of the standings all season. A game like that would typically result in two points for the home team. They have just one goal over their last two games and have scored two or fewer in three of their last four. The good news? Typically these guys can score on any given night.

“I mean, there’s a lot of really good teams in this league, and I think it’s on us to just go into these games knowing the two points mean a little bit extra,” said Cirelli. “Just keep it simple. You know, pucks in our end.. get them out quickly, try and get those dirty ones, obviously we’re not scoring as many goals as we’re used to.”

Tampa Bay has six games left until the 4 Nations break, four of those games will be played at home. They're looking at this next stretch of games realistically and taking this homestand game by game.

“We know what we need to do in this room," said Hagel. "When that break comes, we don't want to be out of the playoffs, we want to be in it. So that’s our goal here, to take advantage one game at a time.”