Lightning see winnable game slip away

by Gary Shelton on November 28, 2024

in general

Cirelli protests late call./TIM WIRT

Thursday, 4 a.m.

The Tampa Bay Lightning will spend their holiday asking one question.

How in the world did they let this one slip away?

They were home. They got a hat trick (officially) from Brayden Point. They took a 2-0 lead with Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal.

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Point had his fifth hat trick./TIM WIRT

They scored a goal when Washington goaltender Charlie Lindgren dumped the puck into his own net. They had a 4-3 lead in the third period. The Caps were without star Alex Ovechkin. They scored (disallowed) a goal that would have given them a 5-4 lead with four minutes to play.

And somehow, they lost.

The Bolts were beaten 5-4 on Wednesday night, a particularly galling defeat in that they could never put away the Caps, who won on a shot by Tom Wilson (his second goal in 17 games) with 3:26 to play.

The goal came after a four-minute penalty against Anthony Cirelli. Cirelli had seemingly scored the go-ahead goal with 4:02 to play, but his stick hit Washington’s Dylan Strome in the face.

The Caps rallied from deficits of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3. They beat Vasilevskiy five times, including a shorthanded goal.

Point scored the first two goals of the game. He was given credit for Lindgren’s own-goal (he was the last Bolts to touch the puck), which gave him his fifth hat trick. Call it a trick with a funny hat.

Mikey Eyssimont scored his second goal of the season for the Bolts.

Jon Cooper coached his 900th game for the Lightning. He is the eighth man in league history to do it with one franchise.

Vasilevskiy had a tough night./TIM WIRT

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