The Backcheck: Lightning open season with 5-4 loss to Ottawa

A pair of goals from Nikita Kucherov and three points from Brayden Point were not enough for a Tampa Bay Lightning win in Thursday night’s 2025-26 season opener.

Tampa Bay led Thursday’s game 3-1 to open the second period thanks to its power play, but Ottawa scored four straight goals to steal a 5-4 win from the Lightning at Benchmark International Arena.

“I don’t know if our execution was there as that game went on, and when you don’t execute, it makes you look kind of slow,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said postgame. “I think that’s kind of what crept into our game. We just couldn’t connect two or three passes, and when you do that you’re late in plays, and it came back to bite us in the end. Our execution has to get better. We’re better than we played down the stretch.”

While Thursday was only game one of a new regular season, Tampa Bay’s power play looked strong for a Lightning team seeking a ninth-straight trip to the postseason–Tampa Bay went 2-for-3 on the power play with goals from Oliver Bjorkstrand and Kucherov.

The first Lightning goal of the season came off the stick of Bjorkstrand on the team’s first power-play opportunity. Bjorkstrand crashed to the right post for a pass from Jake Guentzel down low 5:25 into the game.

Guentzel also set up the 2-0 goal, this time for Point, 1:25 later.

Defenseman Darren Raddysh held the zone at the right point and ripped the puck to Guentzel below the goal line. Guentzel found Point, whose snap shot from the right faceoff circle beat Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark to the left post.

Ottawa took some momentum back with a power-play goal of their own midway through the period, but the back-to-back Art Ross Trophy winner in Nikita Kucherov had the response, wiring his first goal of the season on the power play to make it 3-1 Tampa Bay with 5:14 left in the first period.

“We had some good looks on the power play, a couple goals,” Point said postgame. “It's been a work in progress, and I think tonight for the power play was a good step. Just weren't able to get it done in the third.”

Ottawa cut into the Lightning lead 42 seconds into the second period when a point shot hit the post and an unfortunate bounce carried the puck into the net to make it 3-2. The Senators then tied the game at 3-3 with Shane Pinto’s short breakaway goal late in the period.

Pinto’s second goal of the night came with 1:47 left in regulation to give Ottawa their first lead, and an empty-netter wound up being the winner after Kucherov’s second score of the night made it 5-4 Ottawa with 12 seconds remaining.

"It's hard not to be disappointed, right? You're up a 3-1 lead, and you let it slip away and let a team hang around and get back in it,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “You leave it up to chance or one mistake, and we got caught making one too many tonight and gave them too many looks in the end. And we should win a lot of games when we score four goals, and for us to give up that many, that's not a recipe for us. So (we’ve) definitely got to clean some things up."

Raddysh and Hedman also had two points for the Lightning on a night Andrei Vasilevskiy ended with 29 saves.

The Lightning will look to even their season record on Saturday when the New Jersey Devils visit Tampa.

Benjamin’s Three Stars:

1. Shane Pinto, OTT (2 Goals, 1 assist)
2. Brayden Point, TBL (Goal, 2 assists)
3. Artem Zub, OTT (Goal, 2 assists)