Overview
- Tampa Bay beat Montreal 5-4 in a shootout, with Nikita Kucherov scoring twice, Gage Goncalves posting two assists and the deciding shootout goal, and Jonas Johansson making 32 saves.
- Juraj Slafkovsky forced overtime with 3.8 seconds left for the Canadiens before Johansson denied both shootout attempts to seal the Lightning’s fourth straight win.
- One night earlier, the Lightning topped the Panthers 4-2 in Sunrise in a bruising rivalry game officially logged at 45 penalties, with Andrei Vasilevskiy stopping 24 shots and Kucherov scoring twice.
- Florida finished just 1-for-10 on the power play and allowed a shorthanded goal, while Tampa Bay went 0-for-6 with the man advantage in the 4-2 win.
- The back-to-back lifted Tampa Bay’s post-holiday run to four wins and kept the club within two points of Detroit in the Atlantic Division, as Pontus Holmberg scored in both games and Brandon Hagel returned from injured reserve.