Wednesday, 4 a.m.
The Tampa Bay Lightning bounced back from a disappointing loss Tuesday night.
Jake Guentzel made sure of it.
The Lightning, still wounded, were missing their top three defensemen against the New Jersey Devils. No Victor Hedman. No Ryan McDonough. No Erik Cernak.
No problem.
Guentzel scored a hat trick in a 5-1 victory over the Devils. He scored the opening goal of the game in the first period. He scored the third goal of the game in the second period. He scored the fifth goal in the third period.
It was the eighth hat trick of Guentzel's career. It gave him 11 goals on the season.
Nikita Kucherov and Darren Raddysh also scored for the Bolts.
Andre Vasilevskiy stopped 31 of 32 shots. He is now 7-5-2 on the season.
Coach Jon Cooper missed the game with what the team called "personal reasons."
The Lightning are home against Edmonton on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Benchmark International Arena.