The thunder rolled in Tampa on Saturday and the Lightning remain undefeated

The Tampa Bay Lightning were back on the ice at Benchmark International Arena on Saturday night for preseason game No. 4. They welcomed the Nashville Predators to Tampa Bay after being in Nashville earlier this week. 

There was no shortage of excitement when the two teams faced off last Tuesday. After the game was tied 2-2 at the end of regulation, it took four rounds of penalty shootout before the Lightning defeated the Predators 3-2.

Saturday night’s matchup wasn’t much different in terms of excitement, but this time the Lightning were able to come away with the 4-1 defeat of the Predators in regulation time as they improved to 4-0 and remain undefeated in the preseason.

Darren Raddysh put the Lightning on the scoreboard first just over five minutes into the match with his first goal of the preseason. He was assisted by Tristan Allard and Scott Sabourin.

The Lightning extended their lead four minutes into the second period when Mitchell Chaffee scored on a power play with the assists coming from Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel.

Eight minutes later the Panthers got on the scoreboard to cut the Lightning’s lead in half on a goal by Ozzy Wiesblatt.

But in the third period the Lightning opened up the scoring even more on a power play and an empty net situation at the end of the game.

17 minutes into the period as time was winding down, Hagel scored on a tip-in shot to make it a 3-1 Lightning lead. He was assisted by Gage Goncalves and Raddysh who had two points on the day with his assist after a goal earlier in the match.

Then after assisting Hagel, Goncalves scored a goal of his own on an empty net with a minute left in regulation to make it a 4-1 game that sealed the deal as the Lightning went on to defeat Nashville 4-1. Cirelli was the assist for Goncalves, which gave him two points on the night as well.

Hagel, Cirelli, and Goncalves each walked away with two points on the day as the Lightning offense found ways to score goals when they needed to.

Though they came away with the 4-1 win, the Lightning were out-shot by the Predators 29-17, however, the Lightning made the shots when it counted and dominated on power play possessions, getting 28.6 percent of power plays.

The Lightning have the next couple days off before returning to the ice on Tuesday in their first neutral territory game of the fall. They’ll head to Orlando, Florida on Tuesday to take on the reigning Stanley Cup Champions and their in-state rival Florida Panthers at the Kia Center. The puck is set to drop for that match at 7:00PM EST.