The Lightning didn’t get the result they wanted Thursday night, falling 4-3 in overtime to the Seattle Kraken at Benchmark International Arena.
For the second straight game, the team got off to a slow start. They controlled much of regulation but couldn’t find the goal they needed to win.
Brandon Montour opened the scoring at 15:18 of the first period, but Anthony Cirelli answered late in the frame to pull Tampa Bay even. Cirelli’s goal came after Brandon Hagel sent a puck toward the net that deflected off Ryan Lindgren.
Seattle responded quickly.
Kaapo Kakko restored the lead just 1:11 later off a feed from Chandler Stephenson, and Bobby McMann extended it to 3-1 at 3:35 of the second period with his sixth goal in seven games.
“Why are we falling behind?” Jon Cooper said after the game. “That’s my problem. We’re falling behind. Hey, listen, stick taps…we came back. You hope good teams can come back, but we didn’t close it out.”
© Pablo Robles-Imagn ImagesJake Guentzel cut the deficit to 3-2 in the second period, finishing a stretch pass from Darren Raddysh. Corey Perry followed with a power-play goal to tie it 3-3, and from there the Lightning began to take control of the game.
“Once the emotion got up a little bit, I think that’s when we play our game,” Perry said. “You could see that we started to take over the game a little bit more, and we had the puck a lot more. It's just part of our game and it's just what we have to be."
The Kraken sealed a 4-3 overtime win when Montour scored his second goal of the night.
The Lightning outshot the Kraken 33-19 and dominated the shot attempts 74-34, including a 54-20 edge from the second period on. Tampa Bay is now 4-0-2 over its last six games.
With 11 games remaining, the Lightning continue with games on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators and Sunday against the Nashville Predators.