It was a long weekend of road hockey for the Tampa Bay Lightning, with a pair of games that saw two different styles of play—Tampa Bay fought hard but saw one of the longest point streaks in franchise history come to an end with a back-to-back split.
Tampa Bay beat the Chicago Blackhawks in a defensive effort on Friday before falling in a goal-fest in Columbus on Saturday.
The Lightning are now 32-14-4 on the season and will return home for Monday’s game against the Utah Mammoth (27-20-4) as they open a week of games in Tampa.
Lightning defend to 2-1 shootout win in Chicago
The Lightning dominated puck possession, scoring chances, shots on goal and nearly every metric a team hopes to win over the course of an NHL game on Friday against the Chicago Blackhawks.
They won for good measure, beating the Blackhawks 2-1 in a shootout at the United Center.
The game-deciding goal came in the fifth round of the shootout from rookie forward Dominic James, the former Chicago draftee who signed with Tampa Bay this offseason. His goal extended the team’s point streak to 15 games (14-0-1), the third-longest in franchise history.
“For sure the defensive focus,” James said of what’s led to the team’s point streak. “We didn’t give the opposing teams much. And patience. Even when the games are tied late in the game, we don’t think that we have to reinvent the wheel and get risky and maybe give up some chances. We just stay patient, do the things that we need to do and then trust that in the end we’re going to get the bounces and the goals that we’re going to need.”
That patience was needed after a whacky goal allowed Chicago to open the scoring.
Blackhawks rookie Ryan Greene snuck in alone and scored on a shot under the glove of Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy with 2:18 left to steal a 1-0 lead at the end of a first period in which the puck was in Chicago’s defensive zone for much of play.
The Lightning challenged the goal for offsides, but the original call stood after a lengthy review.
The visitors responded with an even more dominant second period, outshooting the Blackhawks 13-2 on their way to evening the score. Tampa Bay finally got its tying goal after nearly 40 minutes of pushing, this time on a play that began with a forecheck from Anthony Cirelli.
Cirelli stole the puck from Chicago defenseman Alex Vlasic at the left wall and fed a pass to Brandon Hagel in the high slot. Hagel slipped the pass to an open Kucherov in front of the net, where Kucherov buried his backhand shot for the 1-1 goal with 1:18 remaining in the period.
Tampa Bay outshot the Blackhawks 31 to 18—including 21 to 6 through two periods—but Blackhawks goalie Arvid Soderblom had the answer in net for much of the night.
“Those can be frustrating games at times because you feel like you’re playing pretty well and you’d like to be more rewarded than you are, and that tests the metal of your players,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “And you just don’t want them trying to go and manufacture something out of nothing just because we can’t score right now. And I thought our play without the puck was excellent. We didn’t really give them much…We didn’t stress, and eventually they got rewarded.”
Neither team scored in the third period, and Vasilevskiy was forced into some sprawling saves in overtime to send the game to a shootout. He finished with 17 saves and is now 11-0-1 with a .919 save percentage across his last 12 starts.
“As always, he’s just outstanding,” Lightning defenseman JJ Moser said of his goalie. “He’s the best in the league, and the things he does and the way he gets us out of certain situations where we break down a little bit, it’s just phenomenal.”
Kucherov was the first player to score in the third round of the shootout, drowning out the sound of Chicago boos with his shootout goal. Frank Nazar knotted the shootout with the next shot, and the competition remained tied after Blackhawks defenseman Louis Crevier and Lightning forward Gage Goncalves each scored in the fourth round.
James closed the night by shooting his first career shootout attempt through the legs of Soderblom to win the game. He became the 10th player in team history to score on their first career shootout attempt and the first since Ross Colton in 2021.
“I don’t know if I was nervous or excited for the opportunity,” he said of the shootout attempt. “Everyone’s booing you and we’re on the road and we’ve got a streak going, so you’re happy to be in that position.”
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
1. Dominic James, TBL (Shootout winner)
2. Nikita Kucherov, TBL (Goal)
3. Arvid Soderblom, CHI (30 SVs)
Columbus hangs on to take Saturday goal frenzy
Tampa Bay’s point streak came to a close on Saturday despite the visiting Lightning showing another pushback effort at Nationwide Arena against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Blue Jackets took the win by an 8-5 score, taking advantage of turnovers and quick offense to hand the Lightning their first regulation loss in 16 games.
“You can’t shadow over the fact that in our last 30 points we could have accumulated, we got 29 of them, and at some point a team’s going to beat you. They’ve got a good squad over there. They have some extremely talented players. They have one of the best defensemen in the league, and they were ready for us,” Cooper said.
The Blue Jackets led only 5:47 into the game. Charlie Coyle forced a turnover in the neutral zone, and forward Cole Sillinger’s shot from the left circle made it 1-0 Columbus.
Tampa Bay got a bit of a gift on the game-tying goal, as Columbus goalie Jet Greaves shot the puck into his own net off the skate of his own teammate to tie the game only two minutes after the opening goal.
Columbus forward Mason Marchment regained the lead less than a minute later, accepting a loose puck in the neutral zone and scoring on a shot from the right faceoff circle.
The Lightning power play tied the game midway through the period with Darren Raddysh’s point shot, but a pair of late goals allowed the Blue Jackets to take the lead back—Adam Fantilli scored on a second opportunity near the right post with 1:27 remaining in the first period, and Dmitri Voronkov turned a Tampa Bay turnover into a breakaway goal with 12 seconds left to take a 4-2 lead into the first intermission.
“I don’t think we started on time today. That first period, maybe a couple too many turnovers,” Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli said. “That’s a fast, skilled team over there that can capitalize on their chances, and we gave them too many. That’s with JoJo making huge saves for us the entire night to even give us a sniff there with the empty net. But like I said, that start there kind of hurt us.”
Tampa Bay’s top line needed less than five minutes of play in the second period to get the game back to even.
Brandon Hagel fell to his stomach in the corner but still made the sliding pass to Kucherov in the slot, where the latter buried the goal on his backhand to get the visitors within a goal of Columbus 3:29 into the middle frame. The goal was the 383rd of his career, tying Vincent Lecavalier for second-most in franchise history.
On the line’s very next shift it was Hagel who forced a turnover, and Kucherov kicked off a 3-on-1 rush for the Lightning shortly after. Cirelli buried the shot near the left post to tie the game at 4-4 just 4:58 into the period.
Marchment restored the Blue Jackets’ lead with 11:05 left in the second period on a snap shot form the left dot, and Charlie Coyle charged from the goal line to score a power-play goal tight to the net for a 6-4 Columbus lead with 1:03 left in the second period.
Marchment finished the hat-trick with an empty-net goal in the third period, and Sean Monahan also had an empty-net goal. The Columbus goals were sandwiched by Guentzel’s second goal of the night with 1:06 remaining, this one at 6-on-5.
Kucherov led Tampa Bay with a goal and three assists, while Cirelli and Guentzel each finished with three points for the visitors.
The Lightning will look to get back in the win column when they return home to Benchmark International Arena for Monday’s game against Utah.
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
- Mason Marchment, CBJ (3 Goals, assist)
- Nikita Kucherov, TBL (Goal, 3 assists)
- Charlie Coyle, CBJ (Goal, 2 assists)
