When the word ‘disappointing’ was used in the Tampa Bay Lightning locker room to describe Thursday’s season-opening loss in New York, an on-ice response was to be expected.
The Lightning followed through after saying they needed to be better, treating fans to a standout first period and the first victory of the season in Saturday's 2026-27 home opener.
The Lightning dominated play for much of the opening period by scoring an early goal and building from there, defeating the Washington Capitals 3-1 at Benchmark International Arena.
“What you saw tonight is what we expect night in, night out, and it's hard to do, especially with schedules and back to backs and things like that. But you give an effort and you compete, and really what it comes down to is winning battles, and we did that tonight,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “We won a ton of battles, which was the complete opposite of what happened the night before. Usually when a team's doing that, good things happen. The boys have pride in there, so they know our job is to put our thumb on them a little bit, and they responded.”
Tampa Bay outshot the Capitals 14 to five in the opening frame and led 2-0 at the intermission buzzer. Forward Brandon Hagel said it was the start the team needed.
"I thought there was just compete,” Brandon Hagel said after two assists and his first multi-point game of the season. “I think that's something we thought we were missing last game. I didn't think anything last game had to do with structure. I think it was just compete and battle wins and we came out here, competed in the face-off dot, competed all over the ice, in the D-zone. I think maybe we could have deserved a few more (goals), but we stuck with it and we were able to grind one out."
The offensive pressure stood out in the first period, partly thanks to an early score.
The Lightning wasted no time in getting the home fans on their feet, as defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous caught a Hagel pass at the right point and fired the puck into the top right corner of the net 2:26 into the game.
Emil Lilleberg earned the secondary assist in his season debut. Saturday marked the 164th game of Lilleberg’s career—all with Tampa Bay—to pass Ole-Kristian Tollefsen for the most by a Norwegian-born defenseman in NHL history. He also added a fight in the second period.
Tampa Bay had an extra blueliner at its disposal on Saturday as they used 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the first time this season, but it was a trio of forwards who furthered the home team’s lead.
Jake Guentzel entered the offensive zone with speed and passed to Hagel atop the faceoff circles, where the latter slid the puck to Conor Geekie at the right faceoff dot. The 22-year-old Geekie dropped to one knee and one-timed the 2-0 goal inside the right post to beat Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren in the game’s 16th minute.
“I told (Hagel) in the intermission, I said, you gave me one two years ago and I missed,” Geekie said. “He kind of faked me out a little bit too, but I was just ready and made sure I put it home.”
The only score in the middle frame came as the Capitals broke into the scoring action, this goal a redirection from an open Justin Sourdif in the slot.
Guentzel ended the night with an empty-net goal in the dying minutes of the game, with the assists going to defenseman John Carlson—his first point as a Bolt—and Nikita Kucherov. Guentzel and Hagel co-led the team with two points apiece.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves for the Lightning, including a sliding pad save on a third period Washington power play, to pick up his first win of the campaign in his 600th NHL game.
Vasilevskiy’s 371 career wins are the most by any NHL goaltender through 600 games. He became the fourth active NHL goalie to play 600 NHL games and just the fifth Russian-born netminder all-time.
Tampa Bay’s power play didn’t score a goal on Saturday but showed more flash than in the season opener. A first period Lightning power play created numerous scoring chances from different areas of the ice, and the team finished with three power-play shots on goal.
Cooper called the power play effort “outstanding”.
"There's games when the power play can go 3-for-4 and you're like, 'Wow, that was surprising.’ And there's games you can go 0-for-3 like tonight and be like, 'I can't believe it didn't go in the net.' Sometimes it just happens that way, but they deserved a better statistical line than they got tonight."
The Lightning can earn their first consecutive wins of the season when they host the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday at 7 p.m.
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
- Brandon Hagel, TBL (Goal, assist)
- Conor Geekie, TBL (Goal)
- Charle-Edouard D’Astous (Goal)
