In Tampa, Brandon Hagel scored twice in a three-goal third period to help the Lightning to a 4-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday. 
Brian Elliott made 24 saves in the Tampa win.
The Lightning improved to 19-9-1.
“You’ve got to win your games at home, at least most of them, and that’s what we did,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Going into the third period, we’ve had leads or we’ve been tied and we’ve pushed in that period like we did tonight. It was a good homestand.”
The Lightning took a 1-0 lead at 3:57 of the first period on Pierre-Edouard Bellemare‘s first goal of the season.
“Helping offensively when we win the game is nice,” Bellemare said. “If we would’ve lost the game, it wouldn’t have been as fun. [Columbus] is a hardworking team. We got very good goaltending from ‘Moose.'”
Columbus tied it, 1-1, at 3:10 of the middle frame on a strike form Kirill Marchenko.
“It got me excited and it was a big goal for our team to make it 1-1,” Marchenko said. “I thought we played very good in the second period and had more opportunities where we could’ve scored.”
Columbus dropped to 10-17-2.
“We played a pretty good game, and then you make a couple of mistakes and that’s what this team can do to you,” Columbus coach Brad Larsen said. “Two really silly mistakes and it’s in the back of your net. That’s the frustrating part.”
Brayden Point scored at 9:02 of the third period for a 2-1 lead to Tampa.
Hagel scored an even strength goal at 13:36 for a 3-1 advantage.
“Last game (against the Seattle Kraken) we all saw what [Point] can do,” Bellemare said. “You can’t ever count him out of a play. It doesn’t matter how far he is in the D-zone because he’s eventually going to be the first guy in the O-zone.”
He then hit an empty net for the 4-1 final with less than three minutes left on the clock.
“We had to weather the storm in the second period a few times,” Hagel said. “We made it happen going into the third period. That’s where you’ve got to show up, and we did that tonight. Going into the third period we knew we needed to be better.”
Daniil Tarasov made 25 saves in the Blue Jackets loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.