The Tampa Bay Lightning extended their win streak to four on Sunday with a defeat of the Montreal Canadiens. It wasn’t the prettiest, and it couldn’t be decided in regulation, but after a 4-4 tie sent the game into a shootout, the Lightning came out on top for the 5-4 victory over the Canadiens. The Lightning out-shot the Canadiens 2-0 in the shootout to end it.
The first period was a defensive battle as neither team scored in the first and sent the game into the first intermission deadlocked at 0-0.
But then it was all Nikita Kucherov to start the second period as he struck for the Lightning’s first two goals of the day in the second and 12th minutes of the game respectively for his 16th and 17th goals of the year. His scoreboard cracking first goal was assisted by Gage Goncalves and his second was assisted by Brayden Point and Goncalves once again as he quickly earned two points on the night.
Nick Paul extended the Lightning’s lead to 3-0 in the 14th minute with assists by Oliver Bjorkstrand and the rookie Maxim Groshev in his NHL debut game to earn one point in his NHL debut.
The Lightning took their 3-0 lead into the second intermission, but the third period went downhill quickly for Tampa’s defense.
Ivan Demidov put the Canadiens on the board just over a minute into the period on a snap shot that made it a 3-1 match. He was assisted by Juraj Slafkovsky and Noah Dobson.
Pontus Holmberg answered back just :40 seconds later to extend the Lightning’s lead to 4-1 with a goal 1:40 in that was assisted by Bjorkstrand for his second point of the day, along with Charle-Edouard D'Astous.
Juraj Slafkovsky scored his first goal of the night 9:16 into the third to make it a 4-2 match in Tampa. He was assisted by Oliver Kapanen.
Noah Dobson then made it a one-point match on the ice with a snap shot goal 12:17 in that was assisted by Cole Caufield and Mike Matheson to make It a 4-3 game.
And then with just :04 seconds remaining in regulation, Slafkovsky scored his second goal of the match and earned his third point of the day with the game-tying goal to send a 4-4 game to overtime. His goal was assisted by Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson.
The match was unable to be decided in the five minute overtime either and it was on to a shootout. The Lightning out-shot Montreal 2-0 with goals by Point and the game-winner by Goncalves to secure the nail-biting win for Tampa Bay 5-4 over the Canadiens.
The Lightning (21-13-3) will look to keep their win streak alive on Wednesday when they close out the 2025 calendar year in Anaheim with a New Year’s eve matchup against the Anaheim Ducks (21-15-2).
It will be Jake Guentzel vs Mikael Granlund and Kucherov against Ryan Poehling in a battle against two very evenly matched teams.