In Tampa, the Lightning scored three times on the power play, including a strike in extra time by Steve Stamkos for a 4-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night.
“I love when we score in overtime,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “That’s the thunder, you can really feel it.”
Stamkos scored with 52 seconds elapsed in the extra session.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 16 saves to earn the win for Tampa.
Nino Niederreiter gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Tampa improved to 42-18-6.
“We want to be playing good down the stretch and into the playoffs,” Stamkos said. “Panic has never set in with this group. We’re just trying to figure things out. Sometimes it takes a while. We’d rather have some of those hiccups this time of year than a month from now.”
Tampa’s Alex Killorn tied the game, 1-1, with 52 second gone in the middle stanza.
“We responded well, we were down pretty much the whole game until the end,” Cooper said. “Especially in the third period. We didn’t give them anything in the third and the power play came up big.”
Carolina’s Seth Jarvis and Tampa’s Victor Hedman exchanged goals for a 2-2 tie.
Sebastian Aho put the Hurricanes up, 3-2, heading to the third period.
Carolina dropped to 44-15-8.
“At the end of the day I could tell, the first shift we were gassed,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Guys tried their hardest, but we were so slow to everything. We had a chance to win the game. Give credit to ‘Raants.’ He kind of held us in there.”
Brayden Point tied the game at 6:02 of the third period to force the extra session.
“Guys are shooting,” Point said. “We’re just kind of … not trying to take every opportunity and trying for the perfect play. We’re getting pucks on net and converging.”
Antti Raanta made 28 saves in the Canes loss.
“I think in the first period we were doing a good job at getting pucks deep,” Raanta said. “And whenever we did that we pretty much scored. Obviously they scored three power-play goals today, so I can be much better in there. Five points out of six (on the trip), we’ll take that and get back home and get ready for Thursday.”
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