Martinez, Golden Knights recover for OT victory against Lightning

TAMPA -- Alec Martinez scored at 3:09 of overtime, and the Vegas Golden Knights recovered for a 4-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Thursday.

Martinez stuffed in a loose puck off a shot from Jack Eichel that trickled behind Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Tampa Bay forced overtime after Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point scored 1:39 apart late in the third period.
Keegan Kolesar, William Karlsson and Chandler Stephenson scored for the Golden Knights (39-20-6), who have won four of their past five games. They remained tied with the Los Angeles Kings for first place in the Pacific Division; Los Angeles won 5-2 at the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday.
"I think we found our emotional needle in this game," Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. "The little scrum or whatever probably dragged us into it. Now the temperature goes up. A couple of those shifts really got us engaged. I've always been ok with that for our group."

Jonathan Quick made 34 saves in his second start with the Golden Knights (2-0-0) after being acquired in a trade from the Columbus Blue Jackets on March 3.
"It's a hockey game," Quick said. "It's that time of the year where every point is huge. It's a great team over there, and we battled hard for those two points."
Point (two goals, one assist) and Kucherov (one goal, two assists) each had three points for the Lightning (38-21-6), who are 1-4-2 in their past seven games and trail the Toronto Maple Leafs by four points for second place in the Atlantic Division. Vasilevskiy made 17 saves.
"I liked everything about the game," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "We deserved points tonight. You look at that little slide we had, this is a completely different team. I thought we were way better tonight than we were against Philadelphia (a 5-2 win on Tuesday). This is the best we've played in a while."
Kucherov cut it to 3-2 at 17:53 with a one-timer from beyond the right face-off circle that went off the near post after Vasilevskiy was pulled for an extra attacker.
Point tied it 3-3 on a power play with 28 seconds left after Kucherov faked a one-timer and passed to Point, who scored from the slot.
"It's tough [giving up a lead]," Karlsson said. "You want the two points, but you can't really worry too much about it. You have to focus on the next shift, and that's what we did. So, I think we answered pretty well."

Kolesar gave Vegas a 1-0 lead 27 seconds into the first period with a tap-in on a 2-on-1 with Teddy Blueger.
Point tied it 1-1 at 4:28 with his 40th goal of the season, a rebound in front after a shot by Kucherov.
"Overall, I thought our game wasn't bad," Point said. "We would've liked to get two [points], obviously. I thought our 5-on-5 game, for the most part, was good. We were skating, we were competing. That's what we need right now to work our way out of a tough stretch."
Karlsson gave the Golden Knights a 2-1 lead at 2:27 of the third on a short-handed breakaway after beating Sergachev to a loose puck.
"I didn't realize it went in until (Vegas forward) Reilly [Smith] came over," Karlsson said. "He was the messenger. It was nice that it went in. It's been a while. I've had opportunities, and it was nice to get a greasy one. I'll take that any day."

Stephenson extended the lead to 3-1 at 5:39 on a power play off a redirection of a shot by Shea Theodore.
"I thought for two-and-a-half periods, we were the better team," Sergachev said. "We were on it, shooting pucks and retrieving them. We didn't give them breathing room in their [defensive] zone. I thought we played well, but the [short-handed] goal and the power-play goal kind of set us back."
NOTES: It was the Golden Knights' seventh overtime win this season; only the New Jersey Devils have more (10). … Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo had an assist and a game-high five blocked shots in 23:39 of ice time. … Kucherov had his 10th three-point game of the season and extended his home point streak to 23 games (42 points; eight goals, 34 assists). ... Point's 41 goals tie his NHL career high from 2018-2019. He has nine in his past 10 games.