The 2026-27 Tampa Bay Lightning squad opened their season at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, falling 5-1 to the New York Rangers.
The home team grabbed a 3-0 lead and never surrendered the advantage despite multiple Lightning power-play opportunities.
“I think the disappointing thing for me is a coach understands you’re going to lose games, you’re going to win games, but it’s how you go about that,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said of the game. "I just thought we had limited pushback, and that’s just not a staple of what’s gone on in this room."
Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring with a power-play goal after Pavel Dorofeyev’s one-timer hit the crossbar and the puck found an open Zibanejad at the left circle in the game’s fifth minute. The Rangers then made it 2-0 midway through the opening frame, this time on a Dorofeyev shot at the left hashmark to finish a rush chance with former Bolt Oliver Bjorkstrand after a turnover.
Despite Tampa Bay out-chancing the Rangers in the opening period, the Rangers held the lead on the scoring front. Eeli Tolvanen then tripled the Rangers’ advantage in the opening moments of period two when his centering pass caromed in.
The Lightning got a fortunate bounce of their own to get involved in the offense, when Nikita Kucherov’s spinning pass at the goal line turned into the 3-1 goal thanks to a bounce off the skate of a Ranger at the net 7:59 into the middle frame.
Ilya Mikheyev and Brayden Point earned assists on the play. The goal marked Kucherov’s third time scoring a season-opening goal (also: 2023, 2019) for Tampa Bay, tying Martin St. Louis for most in franchise history (2011, 2009, 2008).
The Rangers then built on their lead to make it 4-1 with four minutes to play in the period, this time on an open netfront redirection by forward Gabe Perreault.
"There was going to be some bobbled pucks, there was gonna be some misconnections on game one of the season,” defenseman John Carlson said. "I think that's a little bit of what's expected, but I think there was just missing that little oomph in our game that we expect from each other and that's why we came up short.”
Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin was central in the victory for the home team, stopping 24 of 25 shots on goal before ending the night with an empty-net goal. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 stops in the other net.
Tampa Bay got several looks at the power play, finishing 0-for-7 on the man advantage and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill.
"Those types of things, you've just got to go back to the drawing board I think. You see the PKs now, you work on it,” forward Brandon Hagel said of the power play. "You don't have a ton of time to work on it, but we got better. I think there was maybe a lack of execution in some areas, but other than that I think we'll be fine. It's one game. It's one of those things, I'd be more worried about 5-on-5 than I would be about the power play. Once we get that back on track, I think everything kind of clicks."
Tampa Bay returns to Benchmark International Arena for this season’s home opener on Saturday, when they’ll face the Washington Capitals at 7 p.m.
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
- Igor Shesterkin, NYR (Goal, 24 SVs)
- Pavel Dorofeyev, NYR (Goal, assist)
- Nikita Kucherov, TBL (Goal)
