For some teams, the first round of the NHL playoffs isn’t likely to last very long at all. In fact, this appears to be the case for the Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins as they both trail their respective Series 3-0.

This is likely to come as a surprise to many since Tampa tied an NHL record with 62 wins this season and finished first in the Atlantic Division, the Eastern Conference and the entire league. Things got off to a pretty healthy start for the team in their series against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who made the playoffs as the second wildcard team in the East.

Tampa stormed out to a 3-0 lead in the first period of game one at home, but were then completely stunned to see the Blue Jackets score four straight goals, including three in a six minute span in the third period to win the game 4-3.

Columbus proved that was no fluke as they completely dominated the Lightning in game two to the tune of 5-1 to take over home Ice Advantage with their pair of road wins. The two teams then headed to Columbus, but Tampa’s luck didn’t change as they fell short 3-1 in game three. Tampa has managed to score just two goals in the last eight periods of hockey against Blue Jackets’ goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

To make matters worse, Tampa forward Nikita Kucherov, who led the NHL in scoring this season with 128 points, was suspended for game three for a dirty hit on Markus Nutivaara. Also, goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy who led the league with 39 wins this year has struggled mightily in net. Tampa entered the series after beating Columbus in all three regular-season games this year as well as outscoring them 17-3 in the process.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are facing the same fate as Tampa after they dropped the first three contests against the upstart New York Islanders. The Islanders won game one 4-3 at home in overtime and followed up with a 3-1 win in their second home outing. They then took care of business in game three in Pittsburgh with a convincing 4-1 win.

The big story in the Islanders vs Penguins series has been the lack of production from Pittsburgh centre Sidney Crosby. The team captain was held pointless in the first three games and had a minus-4 rating. He was also charged with committing a total of eight giveaways.

Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh could possibly come back to win their series, but just four teams have ever managed to come back from a 3-0 hole. The combined NHL playoff record for teams losing the first three games of a playoff series is 4-186.

As far as the rest of the series go, there hasn’t really been too much in the way of surprises. The Toronto Maple Leafs managed to wrangle home ice advantage away from the Boston Bruins by winning game one 4-1 in Boston. The Bruins then returned the favour with a 4-1 win in game two. It was a rather nasty contests and Toronto forward Nazem Kadri was suspended for the rest of the series after his vicious crosscheck to Jake DeBrusk. Kadri could possibly miss five games and he was also suspended for three playoff games last season when the two teams met.

Reigning Stanley Cup champions the Washington Capitals won their two home games against the Carolina Hurricanes by scores of 4-2 and 4-3 in overtime.

In the West, the Conference champion Calgary Flames beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-0 in game one, but then lost home ice advantage by dropping game two 3-2 in overtime. The Nashville Predators also failed to keep their home ice advantage after falling 3-2 to the Dallas Stars in game one of their tilt and then rebounding to win game two 2-1 in overtime.

The San Jose Sharks were the third Western Conference team to give up their home ice edge as they beat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-2 at home in game one, but were 5-3 losers in the second game. They were then doubled 6-3 in Vegas in game three to fall behind 2-1 in the series. San Jose veteran centre Joe Thornton has been suspended for game four after an illegal hit on Tomas Nosek.

The Winnipeg Jets followed the lead of the rest of the Western squads by giving up home ice advantage to the St. Louis Blues. The Blues edged Winnipeg 2-1 and 4-3 on the road, but then let the Jets back in the series by losing game three 6-3.

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