Hot Lightning tie franchise mark with shootout win over Penguins
Nikita Kucherov scored the game-winning goal in the shootout, and the Tampa Bay Lightning earned their franchise-tying 11th straight victory by edging the host Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 on Tuesday night.
After Tampa Bay's Gage Goncalves and Pittsburgh's Egor Chinakhov netted in the session, Kucherov, whose 10-game point streak ended, flipped in the winner to equal the franchise record of 11 wins set in 2020.
The Lightning's J.J. Moser scored in the third period, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy won his eighth straight start with 26 saves.
Evgeni Malkin tallied late in the third period for the Penguins, while goalie Arturs Silovs stopped 30 shots as Pittsburgh lost its third consecutive contest after a six-game winning streak.
Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson missed the match after being placed on injured reserve Tuesday with a lower-body injury, but forward Bryan Rust returned from a two-game absence and slotted back onto the top line.
With each team playing its third game in four nights, offense seemed hard to generate from the start. Tampa Bay's penalty-kill unit starred after Kucherov went off for two tripping penalties.
Vasilevskiy denied Tommy Novak's slapper on an odd-man rush near the buzzer, which represented Pittsburgh's best scoring chance but would not have counted in the offense-starved opening frame that Tampa Bay led 10-8 in shots.
After another failed Penguins power play in the second, the Lightning took their first turn on the man advantage and nearly tallied when Darren Raddysh's blast from the point clanged off the crossbar.
Following a second fruitless power play by the visitors, Pittsburgh's Brett Kulak found himself wide open in the high slot at 15:11. However, his blast was smothered by Vasilevskiy.
In the first three minutes of the third, Vasilevskiy stuffed Novak and then Silovs kept out Goncalves' chip a minute later. Vasilevskiy made a spectacular stop with a kick-save of Rickard Rakell's wrister from 27 feet out at 9:24.
Locked late in the scoreless match, Yanni Gourde flipped a shot on goal that Silovs appeared to possess, but it fell below him. Pittsburgh players gave up and skated by on the play, and a trailing Moser stabbed at the loose puck under Silovs for his fifth goal at 14:13.
The home side pulled Silovs with over three minutes left, and Malkin rang home the tying goal with 2:16 left to force overtime.