Jan 16, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Blues right wing Jordan Kyrou (25) scores the game winning goal against Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (88) during the shootout at Enterprise Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Le-Imagn Images
If nothing else, tonight’s loss by the Tampa Bay Lightning is a perfect example of why it’s so hard to string long winning streaks together in the NHL. Despite statistically dominating the St. Louis Blues for most of the night, the Lightning saw their eleven-game winning streak come to a halt as they fell in a shootout, 3-2.
It’s not often a team puts up a heat map like that and ends up on the losing side. Yet, that’s what happened as the Lightning ran into a hot goaltender in Joel Hofer, who finished the night with 34 saves on 36 shots through regulation and overtime before stopping all three shoot-out attempts. First, second, and third Stars to that gentleman.
The Lightning were down two goals after the first period due to goals from Jake Neighbours and Nick Bjugstad 30 seconds apart at the end of a period where the Bolts pretty much dominated. Tampa Bay bounced back with their own quick strike as Nikita Kucherov and Oliver Bjorkstrand converted both ends of a 5-on-3 power play in the second period.
Credit to the Blues for locking things down in the third period and battling the Bolts to a draw. They also had the better run of play in overtime, but a nice sliding block by Darren Raddysh broke up a two-on-one chance that might have ended things.
Jordan Kyru converted on a nice move in the shootout to beat Andrei Vasilevskiy, who finished with 19 saves on 21 shots on the night. Hofer denied Gage Goncalves, Jake Guentzel (who had six shots on net during regulation turned aside by the goaltender), and Kucherov to finish off the win.
Tampa Bay will head to Dallas to finish their road trip with a matinee game on Sunday. Not a bad time to start a new winning streak.