"It's unfortunate that we had to use five, six games early in the year kind of as our exhibition is the way we treated it almost, but I'm really proud of the guys,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said postgame. "They’ve dug in. They're pros, and we're a different team right now. I think there's synergy and chemistry on the lines, and everybody's picking each other up.”
Tampa Bay was a force in the game’s opening minutes, earning numerous scoring chances despite the first period ending in a 0-0 tie.
Hagel scored for a third straight game on a night that saw him consistently wreak havoc in the Dallas defensive zone. The winger hit a post in the first period and created numerous other good looks before opening the scoring in the middle frame.
Hagel’s goal came on the power play, the score a centering pass that deflected off the stick of Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen before crawling over the goal line. Initially waved off, a review showed the puck crossed the line to make it 1-0 with 4:58 left in the period.
Even Hagel wasn’t initially sure if the puck had fully crossed the goal line.
"It was a little bit dicey, to be honest,” Hagel said. "I didn't know if I could see red or not, but (Dominic) James was pretty confident it went in. But thank God it did and they blew the whistle because I think there was a breakaway or something."
The Stars tied the game 2:03 into the third period on Adam Erne’s net-front redirection of a point shot from defenseman Adam Petrovic.
The Lightning stuck with their game plan, and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stood tall in the third period. Vasilevskiy made 10 of his 20 saves across the final 20 minutes of regulation to push the game to overtime, when the home team earned the winner.
Midway through the extra period, Hagel forced a turnover by Dallas’ Mikko Rantanen in Tampa Bay defensive zone, and Cirelli chipped the puck out of the zone to create a breakaway chance for himself. Cirelli deked to his backhand before tucking the puck just inside the right goalpost to win the game.
“I think that's his signature move,” Hagel said of Cirelli’s winner. "I think he did that a lot a couple of years ago, and I don't know why he hasn't done it for a while, so when I saw him go back to it I knew he was gonna put in that winner.“
The team will look to keep the wins coming when they begin a three-game road trip with a game against the Utah Mammoth at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
Despite overcoming their slow start to the season, the Lightning aren’t getting too wrapped up in their recent run of success. The focus remains on getting better one game at a time.
