The Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday fell to the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-2 as their early season struggles linger on.
The Blue Jackets struck first in Saturday’s match on a back-hand shot by Kent Johnson that went in for his first goal of the 2025 season. He was assisted by Boone Jenner and Adam Fantilli.
The Lightning answered back to tie it up and then went up 2-1 after back-to-back goals. Ryan McDonagh scored his second goal of the season on a wrist shot that was assisted by Pontus Holmberg and Erik Cernak. 16:22 into the period, Anthony Cirelli scored on a backhand shot that was assisted by Jake Guentzel and Victor Hedman who each now have five assists on the season. That gave Tampa a 2-1 lead over the Blue Jackets heading into the second period.
But the Blue Jackets answered right back in the second period as Damon Severson scored on a wrist shot that got through the goal posts to tie the game back up at 2-2. Severson was assisted by Mathieu Olivier and Charlie Coyle.
The game remained tied as the third period got under way, but the Blue Jackets scored what went on to be their game-winning goal 1:15 into the period on a wrist shot by Kirill Marchenzo. He was assisted by Dmitri Voronkov and Zach Werenski.
Overall, the Lightning were out-shot 31-24. They only had 14 hits compared to 23 for Columbus and they gave the puck away 21 times compared to 18 times by the Blue Jackets.
The Lightning have dropped five of their last six games as they still look to get their offense going after camp-break.
After four games on the road this week, Tampa Bay will return to Benchmark International Arena on Thursday, October 23 for a 6:45PM EST matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks.