By Michael Wax
Make that back-to-back overtime wins for the Lightning, as they take down the New Jersey Devils 4-3 in OT. This was a game that saw Gage Goncalves make his NHL debut and the Lightning struggled but still found a way to get two points. Here's how they stacked up:
Stamkos-Point-Kucherov
Hagel-Cirelli-Paul
Goncalves-Motte-Sheary
Watson-Glendening-Eyssimont
Hedman-Raddysh
de Haan-Cernak
Lilleberg-Perbix
Vasilevskiy in goal.
Here are our three biggest takeaways:
Old Man Luke
It might've been 90s night, but the only guy on the Lightning roster who was born in the 1980s decided to make the biggest impact. Luke Glendening came into this game with five goals in 42 games, already surpassing his total from last season (five) in 70 games. Despite allowing the game-opening goal, the Lightning were able to bounce back and lead after the first period thanks to Glendening's heroics.
With the Devils up 1-0 midway through the first, the fourth line won an offensive zone faceoff before Nick Perbix fired a shot that was pretty clearly going to miss the net. Glendening, the savvy veteran, reached out for an unbelievable deflection to tie the game at one.
He would respond once again with the Lightning shorthanded. As three Devils were in their own zone, Glendening picked off a Luke Hughes pass and waited before sending a snapshot past Vitek Vanecek for the Lightning's first shorthanded goal this season.
This was Glendening's first multi-goal game since he was a member of the Detroit Red Wings on April 9, 2021, and the fifth multi-goal game of his career. He gave the Lightning a much-needed spark.
Vintage Vasilevskiy
One of the staple mottos for this webpage is the idea that your goaltender is often going to have to be your best player for you to win, especially with future Hall of Famer Andrei Vasilevskiy between the pipes. If we're being frank, though, Vasilevskiy hasn't looked like himself since returning from his injury. Now there certainly is a recovering process to get up to game speed following your injury, and not all recoveries are the same, but even as far back as the loss against Boston, Vasilevskiy really didn't look like himself. In this one, he was by far the Lightning's best player.
Vasilevskiy made save after save as the Lightning struggled to get any quality chances on that, especially in that third period where they went over 13 minutes of game time without a shot on goal. He had multiple breakaway stops on Jesper Bratt, who was tasked as being the Devils' engine during this game with Jack Hughes out of the lineup.
It's clear that Vasilevskiy is still trying to find his groove. But if the Lightning are going to have games like this, where it's a struggle to get anything going offensively, it's nice to see that he can revert back to his old form to help bail the team out.
Vasilevskiy also picked up an assist on the overtime winner, giving him 19 assists in his NHL career, which is third among all active goaltenders. It's pretty impressive when you consider he's been in the league for less than 10 years, and the people in front of him have played in nearly twice the amount of games.
Debut Szn
Another game, another debut. For the first time since they called up Mitch Chaffee, the Lightning opted to call up another forward: Gage Goncalves. The 22-year-old was named to the AHL All-Star game the day prior, and lead the Syracuse Crunch in both assists (23) and points (30). he became the sixth lightning call-up this season and joined the likes of Declan Carlile, Jack Thompson, and Emil Lilleberg among those who made their debut in the past week.
Goncalves really impressed in his debut, getting into the action early and often on a third line with Tyler Motte and Conor Sheary. Not only did he have a few scoring chances, but he showed off his toughness towards the end of the first period. After Nathan Bastian laid a headshot on lightning defenseman Erik Cernak, and rendered him out for the rest of the game. Without hesitation, Goncalves was the first one to engage Bastian and landed a punch and a takedown. While he ended up with an extra penalty, the Lightning ended up scoring on that penalty kill anyway, and coach Cooper probably likes to see the tenacity of his young forward rather than caring about some minor penalty.
It remains to be seen whether Goncalves will stick in the lineup. The Lightning currently have 13 healthy forwards on their roster, so mixing could definitely be a thing. With the status of Erik Cernak up in the air, perhaps an extra defenseman recall is necessary as well. But from the first game that we saw from the 22-year-old AHL All-Star, the Lightning should be pretty excited about what they're getting.
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