What more could you want out of a hockey game? Ten goals, a dynamic overtime, a furious comeback, so many pirates, and a goalie fight. The Tampa Bay Lightning battled back from an atrocious first period to overcome a 5-1 deficit and defeated the Boston Bruins 6-5 in a shootout before 64,000 fans in Raymond James.
Nikita Kucherov celebrated his NHL First Star of the Month Award by recording a goal and three assists as the Lightning converted three power play goals in under six minutes to claw their way back into the game. Brandon Hagel (1 goal, 2 assists), Jake Guentzel (2 assists), and Darren Raddysh (1 goal, 1 assist) also had multi-point nights as Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 29 of 34 shots as he ran his personal point streak to 14 games.
Special teams were the difference. Boston, the most penalized team in the league, lived up to their reputation as they were short-handed eight times. The Lightning killed off two of the three penalties against them.
With his team captain back in the line-up for his first game in over a month, Coach Jon Cooper hedged his bets a little by going with an 11/7 line-up. In was Victor Hedman, who played 10:18 and was on the ice for one of the goals against. Out of the line-up came Jack Finley and Curtis Douglas. Don’t worry, fight fans, you would still get some action.
The first 11 seconds of the first period were great. The Lightning took the opening face-off, went down the ice, and Brandon Hagel scored the fastest goal in outdoor game history.That’s exactly how they wanted to start the game in front of a cold, but raucous crowd. Unfortunately, their play dropped faster than the temperatures.
A high-stick penalty by Dominic James broke their momentum a bit, even if there was a make-up call four seconds later. Boston was definitely the better team in the first period as they racked up most of the zone time. The Bolts were having some issues clearing the zone and it came back to bite them against Boston’s fourth line.
Nick Paul had the puck in his own zone and tried to clear the puck up the boards. It was knocked down and then Paul compounded the struggle when he blew a tire as Mikey Eyssimont, yes that Mikey Eyssimont, spun away from him. The former Bolt’s centering pass found Alex Steeves in the slot and Steeves beat Vasilevskiy inside the post.
Four minutes later, Morgan Geekie deflected an innocent-looking shot from the boards to make it 2-1. The penalties kept piling up and Viktor Arvidsson made it 3-1 with another deflection goal, this one on the power play. The Bolts inability to box out the front of the net, which was a key point to their January success, cost them on all three goals.
A lack of pressure in the offensive zone didn’t help matters as the Lightning’s chances after the Hagel goal were few and far between. Their best came off of the stick of Oliver Bjorkstrand with the score still 1-1, but his snapshot was snapped up by Jeremy Swayman, and Boston went down to score just over a minute later.
Oh, yeah, and Anthony Cirelli was shaken up on an open-ice, shoulder-to-shoulder hit and didn’t return to the game. So, everything that could go wrong, went wrong for the Lightning.
In the second, they came out with a slightly more physical mindset and they landed a couple of nice hits. They were playing with a bit more intensity, but got a little too aggressive and Boston caught them with numbers going the wrong way. Morgan Geekie finished off a two-on-one for his second goal of the night to make it 5-1, and things were looking dire for the home crowd.
Really, the only thing that could keep this from being a hockey massacre would be the Bruins getting into penalty trouble. Well, guess what. Boston got into penalty trouble.
Charlie McAvoy started the parade to the penalty box as he was called for roughing Zemgus Girgensons. On the power play, Oliver Bjorkstrand crashed the net and jammed home a rebound to make it 5-2. Mark Kastelic took umbrage to the goal hit Bjorkstrand after the whistle that touched off a bit of a scrum. Kastelic went to the box.
Then the game went off the rails.
On this power play, Brandon Hagel was jamming at a loose puck and Swayman’s reaction was to take a swing at him and tackle him. That led to some pushing, some shoving, probably some curse words, and all of a sudden Swayman was skating to center ice.
There to meet him – Andrei Vasilevskiy.
GOALIE FIGHT AT THE #STADIUMSERIES 🇺🇸: /espn ➡️ https://www.espn.com/watch/ 🇨🇦: /Sportsnet & /TVASports ➡️ https://watch.sportsnet.ca/
— NHL (Bot) (@notnhl.bsky.social) February 1, 2026 at 8:54 PM
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A bundle of off-setting penalties later, Swayman was whistled once again. This time for flipping the puck over the glass. Thirteen seconds later, Tanner Jeannot interfered with Jake Guentzel and the Bolts had a lengthy 5-on-3. Just as that was about to expire with Boston dodging a huge bullet, Sean Kuraly closed his hand on the puck.
Darren Raddysh made it 5-3, and the game was officially interesting. Twenty-three seconds later it was Nick Paul on the doorstep to make it 5-4. The crowd was back into it and Boston was a bit shell-shocked. The period ended with the Bolts having crawled within a goal.
The third period featured a third period team that Lightning fans were familiar with. They held Boston to just 10 shot attempts (after the road team had 29 in the first period) and just 5 shots on goal. The Bruins sagged back in a passive zone defense and dared the Lightning to forecheck and beat them that way.
It took some time but Jake Guentzel won a battle along the boards. The Lightning worked the puck around the ice and it ended up on Nikita Kucherov’s stick. The back-to-back Art Ross winner snapped it past Swayman to tie things at five and the deficit was erased.
Overtime started with Boston putting the puck in the Lightning net and celebrating. But wait, the refs emphatically waved the goal off. Earlier in the sequence, David Pastrnak had slashed a member of the Bolts, but no one heard the whistle.
Tampa Bay had some chances on the power play, with Kucherov finding the post, but Boston scrambled to hang on. Swayman got his redemption on Kucherov as he stoned him on a breakaway. To a shootout!
After the first four shooters failed, Jake Guentzel found the back of the net. Boston needed Pastrnak to score to tie it. The post said no and the Lightning had their greatest comeback in franchise history.
The Goals
Brandon Hagel [26] (Nikita Kucherov, Darren Raddysh) 1-0 Lightning
Alex Steeves [9] (Mikey Eyssimont) 1-1
Morgan Geekie [31] (Charlie McAvoy, Jonathan Aspirot) 2-1 Bruins
Viktor Arvidsson [14] (Charlie McAvoy, Morgan Geekie) Power Play, 3-1 Bruins
Matthew Poitras [1] (Mark Kastelic) 4-1 Bruins
Morgan Geekie [32] (David Pastrnak, Maret Khusnutdinov) 5-1 Bruins
Oliver Bjorkstrand [8] (Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel) Power Play, 5-2 Bruins
Darren Raddysh [16] (Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel) Power Play, 5-3 Bruins
Nick Paul [6] (Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov) Power Play, 5-4 Bruins
Nikita Kucherov [28] (Ryan McDonagh, Erik Cernak) 5-5
