Despite comeback, Bolts fall in OT

by Gary Shelton on March 24, 2024

in general

Stamkos scored two late goals./TIM WIRT

Sunday, 4 a.m.

Maybe the point is this: They at least got a point.

There for a while, even a point looked like too much to ask for. Saturday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning trailed the L.A. Kings 3-1 with 4:25 to play.

Veteran Steven Stamkos, however, scored twice in 3:48 to cap a comeback and force overtime.



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Oh, the good feeling didn’t last. The Bolts barely showed up for the three-on-three, giving up a goal in just 24 seconds to Vladislav Gavrikov on a breakaway. 

Still, the Bolts are 5-0-1 in the last six games, which has been good enough for a bit of breathing room in the Wild Card standings with 12 games to go.

Brandon Point scored his 41st goal to tie it at 1-1 in the first period.

Stamkos now has 29 goals on the year. For his career, he has 210 power play goals.

Andrei Vasilevskiy had a five-game winning streak snapped.

"That's a really hard team to play against," Lightning coahc Jon Cooper said. "I think they have the No. 1 penalty kill in the league, and we got a couple off them. It was a big goal by Stammer at the end. It sucks we weren’t able to get two points, but to get one in this building against that team, it showed a lot of guts.

"The overtime was unfortunate. We obviously had some miscommunication."

The Bolts play against the Anaheim Ducks tonight at 8:30 p.m.

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