Wednesday, 4 a.m.
They have never been better. They have never been hotter.
The Tampa Bay Lightning won their franchise-record 11th straight game Tuesday night, beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 in a shootout.
During their streak, many of the games have been runaways. Not this one. The Bolts didn't score until the third period, and they didn't score much then.
Still, 11 in a row is 11 in a row. The Bolts hadn't done that since 2020.
Twelve? They've never done that.
The Bolts' winning goal came off the stick of Nikita Kucherov in the shutout. Gage Goncalves also scored in the shootout.
J.J. Moser scored on a tap in goal that Arturs Silovs seemeed to have stopped, but then he didn't control it and Moser tapped it in.
That came with 5:47 to play, but Pittsburgh tied the game on a shot by Evgeni Malkin to force overtime.
"It was a pretty gutty effort," Bolts' coach Jon Cooper said. "It's tough to play back-to-back. We defended well. We took a little risk out of our game."
The Bolts travel to St. Louis to play the Blues at 8 p.m. at the Enterprise Center.
