The Tampa Bay Lightning celebrated the return of Mikhail Sergachev to Amalie Arena with another stirring tribute video. They then went out and dropped an eight-spot on Sergy’s new team as they continued their offensive explosion during their home stand with an 8-0 victory over the Utah Hockey Club.
World-class through and through. 💙
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@tblightningnhl.bsky.social) March 27, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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Two Lightning goals were on the board before things got a little misty in the arena during the tribute. Jake Guentzel put home a rebound on Nikita Kucherov’s shot ninety seconds into the game. Victor Hedman followed it up three minutes later by snapping a shot from the left circle over the shoulder of Utah goaltender, Karel Vejmelka. After that, things kind of ground to a halt for both teams. Utah was able to funnel the Lightning attack to the boards and cut off any support while the Bolts just didn’t allow anything at all from the middle of the ice.
There were only 12 shots on goal by both teams while the Lightning doubled up Utah in high-danger chances, 4-2. While it was a nice two-goal lead after twenty minutes for the Bolts, Utah is the type of team that likes to hang around and claw their way back into the game. Tampa Bay would have none of that as they ripped off four goals in the middle frame to blow it open.
While the goal total was impressive, it wasn’t like the Lightning were blowing the doors off of the visitors like they did against Boston a couple of weeks ago. The four tallies came on just 18 shot attempts and 5 high-danger chances. Tampa Bay was just opportunistic with their offense. Gage Goncalves scored the all important third goal of the game when he redirected a point shot from Emil Lilleberg. The young defenseman did a good job of making one extra move to make sure his shot got past the high screen, and Goncalves flashed by at the right time to get his stick on the puck.
Nikita Kucherov made it 4-0 when he served a backhander into the top corner of the far post off of a nice feed from Brayden Point. The deft little shot, pulled off at high speed, chased Vejmelka, who finished the night with four goals allowed on eleven shots. Enter Jaxson Stauber. He made a couple of nice saves early on, but the Utah defense wasn’t helping him out, especially by taking penalties. Jake Guentzel walked out into the open space in the crease with the Lightning on the power play, and beat Stauber cleanly. That gave Guentzel his league-leading 16th power play goal of the season (and Kucherov his third point of the night).
The onslaught wasn’t over as Oliver Bjorkstrand finally scored his second goal as a member of the Lightning as he snapped home a shot from the slot off of a nice feed from behind the net by Yanni Gourde. Ryan McDonagh, playing in his 1,000 career regular-season game, picked up the secondary assist on the goal to give him two assists on the night.
Keeping the milestones rolling, Brayden Point scored his 300th career goal midway through the third period as he batted a puck out of the air (add another assist for Kuch). The scoring mercifully came to an end when Bjorkstrand snapped a laser past Stauber from the top of the circles.
While the offense was fun to watch, it was Vasy’s name the crowd was chanting at the end of the game. The future hall-of-famer made 25 saves on the night for his sixth shutout of the season, the most he’s had since the 2018-19 season. Praise is always deserved when a goaltender posts a goose egg, but it really was an entire team shutout as the players in front of him kept the dangerous chances to a minimum. Utah ended up with just seven high-danger chances on the night, and it took a valiant effort in the third period when the game was out of reach for them to get there.
Utah didn’t have many clean looks at the net as the Bolts clogged the middle of the ice, especially in the neutral zone. On the rare occasions the future Mammoth thought they had a look, a Lightning player stepped in front of the shot. Tampa Bay had 23 blocked shots on the night, including ten in the third period where they already had a six-goal lead.
Much like they did against Pittsburgh, the Lightning took on a team that was gasping for their playoff breath and stepped on their air hose. There was no playing down to their competition in their last two games, and they have the chance to damage another team’s post-season hopes as they have a home-and-home against the New York Islanders on Saturday and Monday. New York stands a point outside of the second wild-card spot with eleven games left to play.
As for the Bolts, they pull into a tie with Florida and Toronto at the top of the Atlantic Division in points with 89 (this is prior to the Maple Leafs game with San Jose). The Panthers and Maple Leafs do have one more win, so the Lightning are still technically in third place, but the gap is as close as it’s been this late in the season in a long time. Oddly enough, the Lightning only have two more points than they did through 72 games last season, but by this time they were ten points behind second place Florida and pretty much locked into the third/fourth spot battle with Toronto.
A couple of wins against the Islanders would make for an interesting final two weeks in the division.
The Goals
Jake Guentzel (Nikita Kucherov, Ryan McDonagh) 1-0 Lightning
Victor Hedman (J.J. Moser, Brandon Hagel) 2-0 Lightning
Gage Goncalves (Emil Lilleberg, Yanni Gourde) 3-0 Lightning
Nikita Kucherov (Brayden Point, Darren Raddysh) 4-0 Lightning
Jake Guentzel (Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman) Power Play Goal, 5-0 Lightning
Oliver Bjorkstrand (Yanni Gourde, Ryan McDonagh) 6-0 Lightning
Brayden Point (Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman) 7-0 Lightning
Oliver Bjorkstrand (Nick Perbix) 8-0 Lightning
