Friday, 4 a.m.
Maybe the Tampa Bay Lightning should stop giving their opponent a head start.
Lately, games of the Lightning have followed a familiar pattern. They start slow. They catch up. And then it's a coin flip.
For the third straight game, the Bolts fell behind 3-1, this time to Seattle in Thursday night's game at Benchmark International Arena. Once again, they clawed their way back to force overtime, but they lost on Brandon Montour's goal 2:47 into the extra period.
The Bolts outshot Seattle 32-19. But they missed on a lot of chances. On their losing goal, Brandon Hagel lost his stick and was headed toward the bench when Montour scored.
The Bolts goals came from Anthony Cirelli (his 20th), Jake Guentzel (his 33rd) and Corey Perry (his 14th).
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 15 of 19 shots. He is 34-13-3 on the season.
The Bolts are home on Saturday, playing the Ottawa Senators at 1 p.m. at Benchmark.