In Tampa, the visiting Seattle Kraken took a 3-1 lead in the first period over the Lightning, then needed a goal from Jared McCann in extra time to finally rescue the win, in a 4-3 decision.
“[The win] makes a six-hour plane ride a lot easier for sure,” McCann said after Seattle went 2-1-1 on a four-game road trip. “I thought we played awesome on this road trip, but it’s over now. We’ve got to focus on the next game.”
The goal came midway through the extra session.
“I think we battled through 60 minutes,” Seattle forward Yanni Gourde said. “It’s never going to come easy in this league. Winning is really hard. You’ve just got to bear down and play through the full 60 minutes to make sure you get those two points.”
Philipp Grubauer made 34 saves in the win.
Seattle jumped out early with a pair of goals. Brian Dumoulin started the offense with a strike at 12:08 off a rebound.
Yanni Gourde pushed the lead to made it 2-0 at 13:08.
The Lightning got one back with a marker from Tanner Jeannot off the power at 13:47.
“We went down pretty quick and had a big hole to climb out of,” Jeannot said. “But the guys did a good job the rest of the game. We fought back and got a point out of it. We’ll learn from the bad stuff and take the good stuff and try to have a good road trip.”
The Kraken came right back with a power play goal from Kailer Yamamoto at 15:52 of the first.
“I thought this was his best game,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said of Yamamoto. “He had a ton of energy tonight — 5-on-5, power play, he was involved in every part of the game. He had the puck on a string and he was making plays throughout the entire hockey game. It was nice to see him get rewarded with a power-play goal.”
Tampa crawled back into the game with a goal in the middle frame from Alex Barre-Boulet at 3:40 of the second period.
Brandon Hagel tied it, 3-3, at 14:32 of the second.
“Obviously in the first period you give up three goals, but we did a good enough job in the last two periods to come back and get a point,” Hagel said. “I can’t really say we deserved to get the two points after the way we played in the first period, but we got the point, we’re going on the road, so we’ve got to take the point and move on.”
Jonas Johansson made 39 saves in the loss.
“I commended them for playing two pretty [darn] good periods, but this is the National Hockey League,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, “and if you’re going to spot a team three goals in the first period, you’ve got to get the next four to win the game. So people are going to look and say, ‘Oh you hit a post here and missed this here at the end,’ but that’s not where the game was lost. It was lost in the first period.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.