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The Tampa Bay Lightning may no longer be the juggernaut that captured back-to-back Stanley Cups, and three straight trips to the Final. But when their stars shine bright, they’re still a handful, as the Seattle Kraken found out Saturday at Climate Pledge Arena.
Three Tampa forwards who have combined for 52 goals in 28 games – Brandon Hagel (two goals), Brayden Point, and Jake Guentzel – led the visitors to a 5-1 triumph. Nikita Kucherov chipped in his 31st and 32nd assists, 2nd highest helper total in the NHL. Seattle has lost all four home games in its history to the Bolts, one in overtime.
Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer, rewarded for his sparkling 33-save effort Thursday against Boston, again played decently with 26 saves. Brandon Montour scored the lone Kraken goal on an early power play. Seattle falls to 1-1-1 on its homestand, and 4-2-1 in the month of December.
1st Period
The Lightning have weird special-teams home/road splits. At Amalie Arena, Tampa is 7th best on the penalty kill, but 19th on the power play. If you want to see extra-man goals during a Lightning game, catch them away from home. Their road power play is 2nd in the league, while their road PK is 27th.
Sure enough, when Emil Lilleberg goes off for cross-checking, Brandon Montour takes advantage from long range. Monte’s 8th of the season puts Seattle on top at 4:24.
Of note, the goal was scored against Tampa backup goalie Jonas Johansson, making just his 6th appearance this season. Hall-of-Famer in waiting Andrei Vasilevskiy, a workhorse, got the night off.
The lead lasts until 11:44, when Brandon Hagel’s skillful redirection of Nick Perbix’s pass beats Grubauer to tie the game 1-1. Hagel, a 6th round draft pick, now has 14 goals.
Braden Point collects a turnover and fires from – sorry – point-blank range. Grubauer gets an arm on it to keep the game tied.
Not long after, Point’s revenge; his 20th goal of the season, tied for 2nd in the NHL. Grubauer makes a dandy pad save on Darren Raddysh, but Matty Beniers fails to tie up Point in the slot. The Tampa forward slyly pokes the puck around Beniers and past his unsuspecting goalie to give the Lightning a 2-1 lead at 13:21.
The ice tilted one way, then the other. Seattle had the first seven SOGs; from then until the horn, Tampa Bay had 10 of the next 11.
2nd Period
Chandler Stephenson is whistled for hooking at 11:40. Mitchell Stephens is a supreme pest on the PK, twice forcing Tampa out of the zone. Brandon Tanev makes a block – natch – Grubauer snags a Nikita Kucherov drive, and the Lightning’s red-hot road PP doesn’t score.
Chaos ensues when Tampa goalie Johansson holds on to the puck too long outside the trapezoid. Eeli Tolvanen’s stuff attempt just happens to hit the goalie’s pad as he’s scrambling back to his net. Incredibly, a second Tolvanen whack, and then a third, can’t work through the netminder and a maze of legs, and his fourth try skids wide. Read it and weep:
A 2-on-1 Kraken rush, Jaden Schwartz and Beniers, has goalie Johansson sliding. Beniers’ one-timer off the pass hits the moving goalie, and would have otherwise gone wide.
A Ryker Evans delay of game penalty puts the Tampa Bay PP back to work.
No offense to Zaiem, our fearless leader, but I don’t the above time estimate is accurate. Anyway, Stephens is finding a home of the Kraken PK, and again Tampa doesn’t score. In fact, no one does in the middle period, with shots 13-8 Lighting, and 23-16 through 40.
3rd Period
Seattle hosts the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday. Tonight in Ottawa:
Early Kraken momentum is blunted when Vince Dunn flattens Gage Goncalves in front of Grubauer. Though it may have prevented a scoring chance by the former Everett Silvertip, putting the dangerous Tampa power play back on the ice is playing with fire.
At 4:03, the Kraken get burned. Jake Guentzel’s 17th puts the visitors in front 3-1.
An Andre Burakovsky blast beats Johansson, but not the left post. A second Kraken power play with six minutes left offers the opportunity to crawl closer, but Seattle registers zero shots on goal. Coach Dan Bylsma pulls Grubauer for a 6-on-5 attacker advantage, which results only in Hagel’s second of the night, an empty-net goal. With Grubauer reinserted, Declan Carlile scored his first of the season in the final minute.
Up Next
After a day off Sunday and a Monday practice at Kraken Community Iceplex, Seattle concludes its four game homestand against Atlantic Division foes by welcoming (but not TOO welcoming) the Ottawa Senators to CPA on Tuesday. The Senators last played Saturday as well, winning a home game against Pittsburgh, 3-2 in overtime.