Young Lightning learn tough lesson against experienced Blackhawks in Game 1

TAMPA - For the young guys, the lesson of the evening was simple enough.

Whatever you do, avoid the prevent defense.

The inexperienced Tampa Bay Lightning, learning as they go, are left to wonder what happened to a game that was snatched from their grips after the Chicago Blackhawks came from behind in the opening game of the Stanley Cup Final Wednesday night. There was calm to this win. There was wisdom. There was patience.

The Blackhawks, who are going for their third Cup in six seasons, seemed content to bide their time until late in the third, when they struck quickly to score two goals.

"We sat back a little too much in the third period and let them take over,'' said Tampa Bay defenseman Anton Stralman. "We were the better team for a lot of minutes. You just have to play 60 minutes.''

For a while, it seemed as if the Lightning's defense-first strategy would pay off. The Blackhawks had only 13 shots in the first period, and Tampa Bay goaltender Ben Bishop seemed to be in a positive zone. These playoffs, Bishop has lost by four goals more than once, but he has shut out the team's opponent more than once as well.

The Blackhawks ended up saving their best period for last. Teuvo Teravainen scored on a screened shot to tie the game at 13:28, with Bishop saying he did not even see the puck coming at him after it had disappeared in a scrum between Valtteri Filppula and Marcus Kruger. Just 1:58 later, Antone Vermette turned a turnover into the game-winning goal for Chicago.

"Could we have made a few more poised plays?'' Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "I suppose we could have. But I thought we had chances to put them away. We didn't put them away.

"Once you do that, to me, that was letting them hang around. And ultimately in the end, you know, Teravainen is a seeing-eye single on that one. That goal had eyes. Give them credit. I think we could have got that puck out. We didn't. Then we turned pucks over on that second one. ''

But the Lightning will forever wonder if they played too passively in the third.

"We sat back a little too much,'' said Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos. "We didn't give them much. … We pretty much didn't give them a lot of time and space. Two instances where the puck finds the back of the net, and that's the game.''

Bishop tried to shrug off the defeat. He thought the strategy was fine for the most part if not for the screened shot.

"We might have won that,'' he said."We did this against New York and it worked. Then the puck goes in, and it's hard to turn it back on.''