Thirty-three seconds.
That’s all the time Tampa Bay Lightning forwards Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli needed to tie Tuesday’s game against the San Jose Sharks after the visiting Sharks appeared to take the momentum with the 1-0 goal late in the first period.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov broke up a Sharks pass in the defensive zone, leaving the puck for Cirelli atop the faceoff circles. Cirelli spun before feathering a pass to a darting Hagel at the left goalpost, and the shot beat Sharks goalie Yaroslav Askarov for the 1-1 goal with 4:50 remaining before the first intermission.
Tampa Bay then scored three straight goals over the final two periods to catapult to a 4-1 win at Benchmark International Arena, earning a standings point for a 14th consecutive game and improving to 31-13-4 this season.
"It's just no stress for some reason right now. I honestly can't even tell you much why,” Hagel said of his team’s ability to respond to opposing goals lately. “When everyone's buying into their role and their job every time they step on the ice, it makes it pretty easy for the goals to go in the net, especially when you're playing good defense and you've got (goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy) kicking. There's so many saves he makes that gives us confidence and so many defensive plays that give us offense. Like I said, I can't pinpoint one thing. It's pretty impressive from all the guys on the ice."
A pair of quick strikes then gave Tampa Bay the lead in the second period, and the home team didn’t surrender their advantage.
Hagel wrapped the puck around the Sharks net near the right post, where Cirelli poked home the loose puck to make it 2-1 Lightning just a minute, 49 seconds into the middle frame.
The Lightning added to their lead with a newer combination up front—Gage Goncalves won a race to a loose puck at the boards before feeding a pass to Dominic James in the corner, where the rookie passed to an open Jake Guentzel at the right hashmark.
Guentzel one-timed the puck through Askarov to make it 3-1 only 88 seconds after the Cirelli marker.
“Forechecking is fun when you're doing it well. Gonzo made an unreal play there,” James said postgame. “He could have got that puck and rimmed it low and it would have been past me, but he had the peace of mind to put it right on my tape, and I was lucky enough to find Guentz.”
The Sharks were the first team on the scoreboard on Tuesday with 5:23 remaining in the first period, as a William Eklund wraparound behind the net ended up bouncing off the body of Tyler Toffoli and finding its way into the Lightning net.
It was the only puck to beat Vasilevskiy on the night, one in which he finished with 22 saves and a .957 save percentage to improve to 21-7-3 on the year.
Tampa Bay then scored three unanswered goals to stretch their point streak, which ties for the third-longest in franchise history and has been topped only by a 15-0-1 run in 2018-19 and a 14-0-2-2 run during the 2003-04 season.
“You need this just to stay relevant in the Atlantic. You look at the Atlantic Division records, you take all the teams and put their record post-Christmas time, it's crazy,” Cooper said of the team’s ability to stack standings points. “So you kind of need to go on these to make sure you're putting yourself in a spot to make the playoffs.”
The night ended with an empty-net goal for Hagel, who finished with three points and co-led all players on offense alongside Kucherov’s three-assist performance.
The Lightning can push their point streak to 15 games when they visit the Chicago Blackhawks for a 7 p.m. game on Friday.
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
1. Brandon Hagel, TBL (2 goals, assist)
2. Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL (22-save win)
3. Nikita Kucherov, TBL (3 assists)
