Sunday, 4 a.m.
In an up-and-down season for the Tampa Bay Lightning, this would count as one of the ups.
How else would you call a game won in a comeback-back-back.
Three times, the Bolts rallied to beat the Edmonton Oilers Saturday afternoon at Amalie Arena. The Bolts trailed 2-0, then 3-2, then 4-3. Each time, they scrambled back to ultimately win 6-4.
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Luke Glendening scored the winning goal with 10:17 to play. It came 39 secons after Steven Stamkos tied the game at 4.
“For us to come back…” Bolts’ coach Jon Cooper said. “The season is still fairly new, but we’ve not been a great third period team. For us to pull it out, it’s great for our moral.”
“Earlier in the year, we might have found a way to get to overtime or to lose it.”
The Bolts surrendered 43 shots (39 of them were saves by Jonas Johansson), but the Oilers were 0-5 on the power play, and they shut out both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who combined for 116 goals a year ago.
Nikita Kucherov scored two goals (and had an assist). Also scoring for the Bolts were Tanner Jeannot, Stamkos, Glendening and Mikhail Sergachev (and empty-netter).
Kucherov now has 13 goals, tied for the league lead, and 27 points, also tied for the league lead.
Cooper was pleased with the Lightning’s final penalty kill, which started with 5:07 to play. The Bolts dominated the two-minute span.
“You can’t take five penalties in a game, especially against those guys,’ Cooper said. “The third period one and they didn’t get a sniff.”
The Bolts are home against Boston at 7 p.m. Monday night.