Saturday, 4 a.m.
Yeah, the Lightning needed someone besides Steven Stamkos to carry the load.
Give credit to Brayden Point. He got the point.
Point, who entered the game with just one goal on the season, said hello on Friday night against the Florida Panthers. Point scored the tying goal midway through the third period, then scored the winning goal with 2:08 left in overtime in the Bolts' 3-2 victory.
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The Bolts, who had been off to a 1-3 start, finally looked like the team from last year's playoffs, but it wasn't until Florida jumped all over them early. The Panthers got off 18 shots in the first period and 10 more in the second and took a 2-1 lead on home ice.
"We weren’t looking at the score," Lighting coach Jon Cooper said. "It was go out there and play the third with passion. It was a typical Tampa-Florida game. It had everything. Our special teams were big tonight. I liked our fight in the third. Regardless of how the score turned out that was a step in the right direction for us."
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy played this best game of the season and had 35 saves in the game.
The key play came when Nikita Kucherov, who has seven assists on the season, took off on a breakaway. Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk slashed Kucherov from behind, then pounded him while he was on all fours on the ice.
That resulted in the winning power play, when Stamkos found Point in front of the net. Stamkos scored his seventh goal earlier in the game.
The Bolts play against the New York Islanders at home at Amalie Arena tonight,. The game is scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m.