Lightning storm back to defeat Panthers in OT

Brayden Point scored with 1:48 remaining in overtime, and the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from down three goals to defeat the Florida Panthers 5-4 at BB&T Center on Saturday.

With the Lightning on a 4-on-3 power play after Frank Vatrano was called for interference, Nikita Kucherov found Point in the low slot with a cross-ice pass.
"It was nice to see us get a power play and convert on it," said Point, who leads the NHL with 15 game-winning goals since the start of the 2017-18 season. "… Just a great pass by Kucherov]. Through the guy's legs. I just tried to stop it and make sure I put it in."
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Cedric Paquette tied the game 4-4 at 11:41 of the third period when Florida forward Dryden Hunt kicked in the rebound of his shot after James Reimer made the save.
Kucherov had a goal and two assists for the Lightning (19-7-1), who have won five of their past six games. Louis Domingue made 24 saves.
"What I liked about the game is we didn't change the way we played," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "We didn't cheat for offense, we weren't trying to go for the home run and get a bunch of goals back in one play. The guys just stuck with it, they played hard. And eventually you start to earn your breaks. They earned their breaks."

Vatrano, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and Evgenii Dadonov scored for the Panthers (10-10-5), who were coming off a 3-2 overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres on Friday and are 1-3-2 in their past six games. Reimer made 34 saves.
"We've got a point tonight, but obviously I think we should have won that game," Huberdeau said. "We know that's a good team and a good team offensively. We had a 4-1 lead, and we can't let four goals in."
Florida took a 2-0 lead in the first period with goals 11 seconds apart. Vatrano scored on a low wrist shot from the top of the right face-off circle to make it 1-0 at 10:23, then Barkov beat Domingue with a backhand on a 2-on-1 off the ensuing face-off at 10:34.
Alex Killorn made it 2-1 at 11:18 of the first with a one-timer from the left circle off a pass from Mikhail Sergachev.

Huberdeau increased the Panthers lead to 3-1 at 2:11 of second period with a breakaway goal after stripping Sergachev of the puck.
Florida went up 4-1 when Dadonov scored off a backdoor pass from Keith Yandle at 8:04 on a 5-on-3 power play.
"We had a chance to win it at 4-1, but we didn't get it done," coach Bob Boughner said. "We just have to take a couple of days, get some much-needed rest, and get back to work."
Mathieu Jospeh got the Lightning to within 4-2 with a one-timer from the top of the right circle off a pass from Kucherov at 13:00 of the second.
Kucherov scored a power-play goal with a one-timer from the right dot off a pass from Victor Hedman to make it 4-3 at 19:00 of the second.

"You go in down two or down one. It was big. Minute left in the period," Cooper said. "You can't forget Joseph's goal too. We're just trying to claw our way back, Joseph gives us that bump. … That was vintage [Kucherov] there to put that top shelf. It definitely gave us hope going into the third."

They said it

"You look up and poor kid's got two goals on him on three shots in the period. But when the game is on the line and you need the timely save, I think it was [Mike] Hoffman that had the breakaway, he stopped that. Stops a big one in overtime on [Aaron] Ekblad. Those are the saves you need to give your team a chance to win, and he is finding a way to give us those saves." -- Lightning coach Jon Cooper on goalie Louis Domingue, who made his 10th straight start
"We started the week with a back-to-back, and we ended the week with a back-to-back. You could tell that the tank was a little bit empty toward the end. But I liked the way we managed the game with 8-9 minutes to go. We were opportunistic early, and we just couldn't finish it off against a good hockey team." -- Panthers coach Bob Boughner

Need to know

Kucherov has 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) in a nine-game point streak. … Point has 10 goals in the past nine games. … Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who left a 5-4 win against the Sabres on Thursday at 11:50 of the first period with an upper-body injury, had two shots on goal and four blocked shots in 23:22. … Hoffman had an assist on Dadonov's goal and has 24 points (12 goals, 12 assists) in the past 23 games. … Huberdeau has two goals and nine assists in a five-game multipoint streak. … Dadonov has three goals and four assists in a five-game point streak. …Yandle got his 400th NHL assist.

What's next

Lightning: At the New Jersey Devils on Monday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, MSG+, SUN, NHL.TV)
Panthers: Host the Boston Bruins on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, SNE, SNO, SNP, FS-F, NESN, NHL.TV)