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Lightning Round: Tampa Bay pull off another comeback to take an overtime win against Washington

Posted on by Igor Nikonov

On Saturday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning completed another comeback to take a second overtime win in a row. The Lightning still haven’t had a lead in regulation after three games and allowed the goal first for the third consecutive game, but played probably their best game so far this season. Justin was on duty to recap this game [Raw Charge]

Kudos to Vasilevskiy and Vanacek for holding the line as two talented teams traded momentum back and forth throughout the game. The overtime period was highly entertaining as the Caps had seven shot attempts, thanks in large part to a power play after Mikhail Sergachev was sent off for crosschecking. Tampa Bay was able to regroup after the penalty kill despite icing the puck just when it expired. They eventually cleared the puck out of the zone when Stamkos jumped on a loose puck and streaked into the zone on a two-on-one with Victor Hedman. The Captain never looked to pass as his head was up and focused on goal the whole way.

Steven Stamkos scored his third goal of the season, which was also a game-winning goal for the Bolts, and continues leading the team and the whole league (alongside with Anze Kopitar) with seven points. After this game he’s just one point behind Vincent Lecavalier for second place amongst the Lightning’s franchise scoring leaders.

Couple of things, however, could overshadow this victory: Nikita Kucherov left the game in the third period after trying to avoid a collision with the Washington Capitals’ Garnet Hathaway and suffering a lower-body injury, which possibly looks like a groin injury. The team didn’t provide any updates on his status and head coach Jon Cooper encouraged to wait until the evaluation. Jan Rutta also left the game in the second period and didn’t return.

Jon Cooper was pleased with the effort of the Lightning’s blue line, which played most of the game with just five defenceman due to injuries of Jan Rutta and Ryan McDonagh. Unlike Rutta, McDonagh returned to the game after taking the stick in the face from Erik Cernak and going to the locker room. The Lightning have currently five healthy defencemen with Jan Rutta being evaluated, while Cal Foote and Zach Bogosian were already out for a while.

Mikhail Sergachev with very mature words about his overtime penalty.

Andrei Vasilevskiy bounced back after allowing six goals in the previous game and made 32 saves last night, including this incredible goal line save after Alex Ovechkin’s shot.

The Syracuse Crunch were very close to taking a second win in a row over the Cleveland Monsters after rallying back from a three-goal deficit, but were defeated 4-5 in the overtime. Jimmy Huntington recorded a natural hat trick.

The Orlando Solar Bears were more successful, beating the Florida Everblades 5-2 in the last pre-season game. Their opening night is scheduled for the next Saturday.

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