Heading into their Saturday afternoon contest with the Ottawa Senators, the Tampa Bay Lightning knew they needed to start fast and break the string of early multi-goal deficits they’ve faced over the last few games. Just because they knew what they needed to do didn’t mean they actually did it. On the very first shift of the game they conceded a goal. Four minutes later they gave up another one.
As they have every other time, they came back to tie the game up. Unlike against Seattle and Calgary, they didn’t stop at tying the game, instead, they rolled off four straight goals to pick up the 4-2 victory and, for a few hours, were back on top of the Atlantic Division. The Sabres ended up beating the Kraken 3-2 in a shootout in order to drop the Lightning back into second place, but the Lightning are keeping the pressure on them.
With Nikita Kucherov and Nick Paul sidelined due to illness, the Lightning needed a some other players to step up. Emil Lilleberg (three points including the game-winning goal) and Charle-Edouard D’Astous (1 goal, 1 assist) were more than happy to oblige. After allowing the two early goals, Andrei Vasilevskiy was solid in net, finishing the night 26 saves to pick up his 35th win of the season.
Perhaps it was the line-up changes (Steven Santini and Scott Sabourin drew in), perhaps it was the 1:00 pm start. Or maybe it was just the Lightning not able to feel life unless they’re bleeding goals on the scoreboard. Whatever it was, they did not have a good first period, and the Senators were more than happy to take advantage. Dylan Cozens opened the scoring just 18 seconds into the game when he slid a puck past Vasilevskiy off of a simple dump in.
Much like the Seattle game, it wasn’t like the Bolts weren’t getting their shots. They had 29 shot attempts in the period, but 12 of them were blocked. There was that creeping feeling that it was going to be another one of those games where they failed to get their shots through or to follow up on rebounds and second chance opportunities.
Meanwhile, they were struggling a bit in their own zone. They weren’t giving up a ton of chances, but when they did, it was a Grade A chance. Jordan Spence banged a rebound into a vacated net after Vasilevskiy made an excellent save on a Nick Cousins shot. The Lightning defenders got caught puck-watching again and left Spence all alone in front of the net with the goaltender down and out of the play.
From that point on, though, Vasilevskiy wouldn’t be beat, and his play over the last fifteen minutes of the first period and early into the second period was a big reason why the Lightning were down just two goals. His biggest save of the day came on Brady Tkachuk on a breakaway in the first period, but throughout the night he was back on form to turn away all of the chances that Ottawa threw at him.
In the second period, the Lightning simply wouldn’t be denied. They had the territorial edge, the statistical edge, and eventually the goals showed up. There are two ways to get around a team that is clogging the net and blocking a lot of shots. One is to drive to the net with puck and force your way into dangerous places. That’s exactly what Charle-Edouard D’Astous did on the first goal. He drove to the net, and even though he didn’t get a shot off, he pulled James Reimer out of position. D’Astous attempted pass from the behind the net wasn’t the cleanest, but it got to Brandon Hagel who fired it off a Senators’ leg and into the net.
Another way to get around blocked shots is to cause turnovers. Enter the Yanni Gourde line. Zemgus Girgensons went after a loose puck on a forecheck and forced it out into open ice. Gourde swept onto it and fed to the center of the ice where D’Astous cut into the slot. The defenseman got the pass and snapped off a shot before the Senators could get in front of him. It beat Reimer and the score was knotted at two.
It would stay that way until the third, thanks in part to Reimer, who finished with 23 saves, making some big stops. The Senators pushed back to begin the third, but the Lightning were able to hold them off and then take the lead on a nice transition goal. It was a rare four-on-two rush with the four Lightning players almost in a straight line as they entered the zone. Hagel was able to feed the puck to Lilleberg in the slot and the Mountain Lilly beat Reimer with a nice backhand goal.
Jake Guentzel added the dagger goal with under three minutes to play when Corey Perry sent him in on a breakaway and Guentzel didn’t miss. They finished off the game by keeping Ottawa from generating any serious chances on net, something that was a trend over the final 40 minutes of the game. During the final two periods of the game, the Lightning allowed just four high-danger chances against.
While Coach Jon Cooper admitted after the game that getting behind by multiple goals is not a sustainable method for success, he credited his team for finding a way to pull off the win.
“Good teams find ways to win games.”
The Lightning have found ways to win games they might have dropped last season and sit at 96 points with ten games to go. They have a ten point lead over Detroit, the first team outside of the playoff picture, and while a playoff berth isn’t quite locked in, it’s getting closer by the day.
The Goals
Dylan Cozens [25] (Tyler Kleven, Brady Tkachuk) 1-0 Senators
Jordan Spence [5] (Nick Cousins, Artem Zub) 2-0 Senators
Brandon Hagel [34] (Charle-Edouard D’Astous, Emil Lilleberg) 2-1 Senators
Charle-Edouard D’Astous [5] (Yanni Gourde, Zemgus Girgensons) 2-2
Emil Lilleberg [3] (Brandon Hagel, Gage Goncalves) 3-2 Lightning
Jake Guentzel [34] (Corey Perry, Emil Lilleberg) 4-2 Lightning
Pretty Colors
#NHL Game Score Impact Card for Tampa Bay Lightning on 2026-03-28:
#GoBolts
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards.com) March 28, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Highlights