Victor Hedman speaks with reporters postgame The Tampa Bay Lightning began their full week of Atlantic Division matchups against a red hot Ottawa Senators team on Tuesday night. The Senators were on the second half of a back-to-back and a 5-game win streak. After a difficult start to 2025, Tampa Bay needed the two points in order to keep themselves in the mix for a playoff spot. The Senators opened the scoring with Michael Amadio getting a power play goal 14 minutes into the first period. That lead didn’t last long though, as Luke Glendening tied it up after tipping in a wrister shot from Emil Lilleberg. The Lightning are currently 12-0-0 when Glendening scores a goal. Tampa Bay was able to take the lead when Nikita Kucherov scored on the power play to make it 2-1. Less than two minutes later Claude Giroux wristed one past Andrei Vasilevskiy at the center point to tie the game up 2-2. Brandon Hagel came out for the third period flying. He scored an unassisted goal at the 1:56 mark, to put his team up 3-2. As the minutes were winding down, the Lightning had to kill off an unfortunate penalty. Ottawa pulled their goaltender Linus Ullmark for the extra attacker. As Ryan McDonough left the box after the Lightning penalty expired, he buried a much needed empty net goal. “We spoke in the room during the game.. let's see what we're made of, said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “If we want to get ourselves back to where we want to be, these are the games you have to win, and not only win them, but make sure we weren't sharing points, and the boys did that tonight.” The Lightning took the game 4-3 and got two much-needed points, which also bumped them back up to a wild card spot. “If you know anything about the game or watch the game, you know exactly what this meant to all of us, and everyone in the room knew as well,” said Hagel. “But it's not finished. We’ve got them in another couple nights.” Both teams will be back to face off again on Thursday night at Amalie Arena.
