Matt Duchene and Roope Hintz netted third-period goals less than a minute apart and the Dallas Stars rallied twice to beat the host Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 on Saturday night.
Locked in a 2-all tie in the final frame after erasing a pair of one-goal deficits, Dallas turned to its speed game and exploited the Lightning’s rear guard to win for the fifth time in its past six contests (5-1-0).
Duchene, who added an assist, started and finished a give-and-go from the right side during a strong rush, taking a pass from Tyler Seguin before burying a sharp-angle wrister at 6:55 of the third for his 11th goal of the season.
Dallas doubled its lead 58 seconds later when Hintz blew by the Lightning defense and flipped in his eighth goal of the campaign for a sudden 4-2 edge.
Evgenii Dadonov and Miro Heiskanen also found the back of the net as Dallas beat Tampa Bay for just the fifth time in the past 15 matchups between the teams (5-8-2). Goaltender Jake Oettinger stopped 27 shots for the Stars.
Anthony Cirelli had both of the Lightning’s goals and has now scored in five straight games. Brandon Hagel had two assists, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.
Tampa Bay’s dismal November continued, as the team fell to 3-4-2 this month.
In the Stars’ only meeting with the Lightning in Tampa Bay this season, Cirelli was a one-man wrecking crew in the first period.
A bad-angle wrister by Hagel kicked out to Cirelli, who banged home the game’s first tally 4:09 into the first, but Dadonov answered just under two minutes later with his sixth marker of the season.
However, Cirelli’s strong presence in front of Oettinger put the home side back up thanks to a similar goal off a rebound at 8:34. It was Cirelli’s eighth goal of 2024-25.
Following a delay of game penalty by Heiskanen, the defenseman redeemed himself by taking a backhanded saucer pass from Duchene and depositing his third goal of the campaign into the back of the net to tie the affair at 2-all at 15:49.
–Field Level Media
