Stamkos Breaks Hearts in Nashville, OT Winner Sinks Former Club
Steven Stamkos scored twice in the final 13 minutes — including a backhand in overtime — to lift Nashville past Tampa Bay 5-4 on Halloween night. The backdrop: Nikita Kucherov, who finished with three assists, reportedly requested a trade from the Lightning on Friday.
Nashville needed every bit of Stamkos's heroics to survive a game that looked like it was slipping away. Reid Schaefer opened the scoring at 11:14 of the first with a wrist shot, assisted by Alexander Kerfoot and Nick Perbix — the goal that would ultimately prove to be the turning point, giving Nashville the first margin of the night. Tampa Bay answered quickly: John Carlson tied it at 13:38, and then the second period opened with a burst of chaos. Jake Guentzel tipped one home just 18 seconds in to put the Lightning ahead, but Nashville responded 27 seconds later when Adam Edstrom snapped one past Justus Annunen to make it 2-2. Victor Hedman then gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead at 3:23 of the second on a Kucherov assist — his third of the night, running his assist total to 14 on the season. Jayden Struble tied it again at 19:42 of the second, assisted by Filip Forsberg, sending the game to the third knotted at three.
The third period looked like it belonged to Tampa Bay. Conor Geekie put the Lightning ahead 4-3 at 3:31, and with the clock winding down, Nashville appeared to be running out of answers. Then Stamkos — playing against the franchise he helped build into a dynasty — wired a wrist shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy at 7:27, assisted by Forsberg and Ryan O'Reilly, to force overtime at 4-4. It's hard to script that any better, and the story of the night was clearly Stamkos refusing to let his former team walk out with the win.
In overtime, Stamkos finished it with a backhand at 0:00 of the fifth period, completing the comeback and handing Nashville the 5-4 victory. Vasilevskiy stopped 29 of 33 shots in a losing effort — a performance that, on most nights, wins the game. Annunen made 22 saves on 26 shots for Nashville. The elephant in the room is Kucherov: three assists, 14 on the season, and reportedly a man who wants out of Tampa Bay. Whether that noise affected the Lightning locker room is impossible to know, but blowing a fourth-period lead against a team with Stamkos on it looks like exactly the kind of night that makes a messy situation messier.