Sunday, 4 a.m.
The last second belonged to the captain. Over the career of Steven Stamkos, it often has.
All those seconds that came before it? Most of those belong to Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Stammer and Vasy, two of the last remaining stars of the Tampa Bay Lightning, each came away with a memorable game in a 3-2 overtime victory by the Bolts over the Boston Bruins Saturday night.
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The Lightning, for the most part, didn't play well, and their defense ended up playing chase for much of the night as the Bruins kept having breakaways. But Vasilevskiy stopped 37 of 39 shots for the win.
The last of those saves came against David Pastrnak. Mikhail Sergachev then found Stamkos open down the ice, and passed to him. Stamkos buried the puck from the right circle for his 10th overtime-ending goal with 1:31 to play. It was his 64th game-winning goal.
“There’s a big reason (his team won)," Stamkos said. "That’s 88 in net. He stole that one for us. We definitely didn’t have our A game, but when you’ve got Vasy back there. you usually have a chance to win. He was the only reason that gave us a chance. It’s nice to get two points when you don’t have your A game."
Besides Stamkos, Taylor Raddysh scored his first NHL goal. Ondrej Palat also scored.
The Bruins were able to come back from a 2-0 deficit.
“It's an 82-game league," Cooper said. "It’s hard to play your best. Sometimes you have some stinkers, and tonight was a stinker. The goalie was on, which we needed. We got the break on that second goal (which went off a Boston skate). You sit here and try to get points. We’ve played a lot of good hockey. this wasn’t our best, but we came away with two against a division rival. We’ll take those and run."