Lightning smash an NHL record and top it off by smashing a franchise record as well.

What a dominant performance.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Lightning smash an NHL record and top it off by smashing a franchise record as well.
Dirk Shadd/Tampa Bay Times/Zuma

The Tampa Bay Lightning put on quite a display on Sunday night and they smashed a pair of records in the process. 

The Lightning were facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks and the level of offensive dominance from the Lightning appeared to leave the Blackhawks reeling for the majority of the contest and resulted in the 2 broken records this evening. The Lightning broke a National Hockey League record in the game's 2nd period and follow that up by breaking a franchise record when the game's final buzzer had gone.

The 1st record came as a result of what will likely go down as one of the most dominant periods in the history of the National Hockey League, a period in which the Lightning out shot the Blackhawks by a margin of 33 shots to 6. The mere fact that the Blackhawks were out shot by 27 shots in a single period is staggering, for some context the vaunted Toronto Maple Leafs offense managed to record just 24 shots total against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night. In the process of dominating the Blackhawks in the second the Lightning's 33 shots resulted in a new NHL record for most shots in a single period, beating the previous record by a 3 shot margin. Now to be fair the NHL only began tracking the stat in the 90's but nonetheless that is an absurd amount of shots on goal in a single period.

It should come as no surprise given that ridiculous performance in the 2nd period that the Lightning would also go on to beat their franchise record for total shots on goal in a single NHL regular season game. The Lightning would rack up a total of 54 shots over the course of the game, beating their previous franchise record by 2 shots, the Lightning's previous of record of 52 was set all the way back in November of 2008. Both of these totals are obviously very impressive and what makes the 54 shots all the more impressive is the fact that the Lightning did it within 60 minutes of regulation time, absolutely bombarding the Blackhawks net over 3 periods. 

Much to the credit of veteran goaltender Cam Ward, he only allowed 5 goals during the game in spite of the seemingly endless barrage of offense from the Lightning. Whole a 5.00 goals against in a single game never looks good his .907 save percentage tells a different story given the sheer volume of shots that he faced. Additionally Ward is no spring chicken at this stage of his NHL career and I wouldn't be shocked to learn that he was rather exhausted by the time everything was all said and done. 

To their credit Blackhawks fans have largely rallied around Ward following his performance this evening, although the same can't be said for the Blackhawks much maligned defense. The blue line has been a sore spot for the Blackhawks fan base and although the team overall failed defensively this evening their defensive core really was exposed by the Lightning offense.

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