Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman drove through the slot and scored at 2:07 of overtime as the Lightning beat the Seattle Kraken 4-3 on Thursday night.
The captain seemed to lose the puck as he split the defense, but the defenseman lunged and swiped at it, sending in the game-winner with his first goal this season.
It marked Tampa Bay’s fourth straight win on home ice in four outings.
Brandon Hagel potted two goals and Ilya Mikheyev notched his 100th career tally. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.
All time, the Lightning are 9-0-2 against the Kraken, while Vasilevskiy improved to 8-0-1 against them.
Dominic James (hand) made his season debut after breaking his hand in September and recorded an assist.
Seattle’s Matty Beniers registered his 200th career point with a goal, and Ryan Winterton and Jared McCann hit the net. Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer stopped 31 shots as the club slipped to 3-0-1 on its five-game road trip.
In a poor exchange behind his net, Vasilevskiy left a puck for Emil Lilleberg, but the defenseman’s weak pass caromed in front of the goal. Winterton then backhanded it in for his second tally at 5:43 with Frederick Gaudreau drawing the only assist.
After taking a point from Brayden Point, Hagel skated in through the right circle and put a shot into Grubauer’s chest. Hagel found his own rebound and put back the game’s tying marker at 16:53.
Hagel ripped a nasty snipe over Grubauer at 3:38 in the second for his sixth goal, and the Lightning’s penalty-kill units stuffed Seattle on consecutive power plays.
Vasilevskiy made the one-goal lead stand up by denying Shane Wright on a point-blank chance with 43 seconds left.
However, James committed an interference penalty inside the first three minutes of the third. McCann scored for the third time this season when he finished a slick feed from Jordan Eberle just seven seconds into the power play at 2:54.
The home side forced a turnover behind Grubauer midway through the third, and Mikheyev batted in the puck to reach the century mark for the go-ahead goal.
Beniers knotted it 3-all when he tipped in his second goal over Vasilevskiy at 15:41 on a long shot by Vince Dunn.
–Field Level Media
