Lightning get back on track with win over Sabres

TAMPA — After watching their one-goal lead become a one-goal deficit in the final 22.3 seconds of the first period Sunday at Amalie Arena, the Lightning went into the dressing room needing to regroup.“We just came to the realization to calm down,” center Anthony Cirelli said.

“We knew we had better in us. I thought it was just go out there and try to stick to our game, try and build shift after shift. And I thought we did that for the rest of the game.



”The Lightning responded with a four-goal second period, eliciting an outpouring of emotion, on their way to a 7-4 win over the Sabres.“The guys knew what was at stake (Sunday),” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “And I thought they really had an outstanding second period.

And it’s a good sign for a team to give up two in the last minute, which is no-no, and make sure to come out in the second and play the way we did, and that was the difference in the game.”Nikita Kucherov put the Lightning ahead to stay at 6:34 of the second with the first of his two goals. With three points, he put himself in the driver’s seat for a second straight Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer.

Kucherov’s 119 points are three more than Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, who isn’t expected to play in the Avalanche’s remaining regular season games.Jake Guentzel scored twice, giving him 40 goals to tie his career high. His second goal was his 17th on the power play, which leads the NHL.

Rookie Conor Geekie, playing his first game back with the Lightning since being demoted to AHL Syracuse 10 weeks ago, joined the second-period scoring party. Defenseman Emil Lilleberg capped the flurry with his first career NHL goal.The Lightning (46-26-8) reached the 100-point mark for the eighth time in franchise history and the first since the last of their three straight runs to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021-22.

They took control of second place in the Atlantic Division and can clinch home ice for the first round as early as Monday, with a Rangers regulation win at Florida. If that doesn’t happen, the Lightning can lock up second place by beating the Panthers Tuesday at home.Kucherov goal sparks LightningThe Lightning entered the night 1-1-3 in their last five games, including a shootout loss last week in Buffalo.

It was a maddening stretch of missed opportunities and puck-handling miscues, and Kucherov seemed to carry that pent-up frustration on his stick.After Ryan McDonagh evened the score at 2 just over three minutes into the second, Kucherov took a puck chipped off the wall and made an inside move on Alex Tuch before picking up speed crossing the blue line. He wristed a shot from above the right hash that pinged off the crossbar, then tapped in the puck from behind goaltender James Reimer.

As he circled behind back of the net, Kucherov had a little extra in his celebration, dropping to one knee and emphatically waving his right fist in the air.“I think the guys, they know what’s at stake for him as well,” Cooper said of Kucherov, who can win his third career scoring title. “So I think when you get down at this time of year, it’s all about the team, but there’s some individual accomplishments that can go down.

The guys fed off the emotion of Kuch.”Geekie finds his spotOne of the big reasons Geekie was scoring goals at Syracuse was because he was finding the soft spots in front of the net and taking advantage of his opportunities. He arrived back in Tampa on the heels of a seven-game point streak in which he had scored eight goals.

Geekie didn’t waste time getting on the scoresheet. With 5:39 left in the second, he took a pass from Gage Goncalves in the right circle and fired a shot on net. The puck bounced high off Reimer back to Geekie, who swept it past the goaltender for a 4-2 lead.

“I was fortunate that maybe I was the only one who saw it, so that helps, too,” Geekie said. “But again, just goes back to kind of what they worked on with me down in Syracuse, and obviously it paid off this time.”Lilleberg’s long wait is overLilleberg’s job isn’t to score goals, it’s to use his size and physicality to prevent them.

But with 3:15 left in the second period, he rifled a one-timer from the left point through traffic to make it 5-2.In his 111th NHL game, Lilleberg became the sixth Norwegian player to score a goal in the NHL. His teammates exulted in the moment, even showering him water in celebration“So happy for him,” Cirelli said.

“He’s a guy that plays so hard every shift and makes those big hits. He’s hard to play against, he’s sticking up for guys. He’s always fighting.

So, to see him be on the scoresheet, it’s huge for him and it’s huge for us.”Note: Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh left late in the second period and didn’t return. Cooper did not have a postgame update.

The last of Raddysh’s 10 shifts ended with 5:52 left in the second period after he logged 9:06 of ice time.• • •Sign up for the Sports Today newsletter to get daily updates on the Bucs, Rays, Lightning and college football across Florida.Never miss out on the latest with your favorite Tampa Bay sports teams.

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