The Tampa Bay Lightning throttled the Colorado Avalanche, 8-2, to pick up a strong bounceback win on home ice. Forward Brandon Hagel led the way with a historic night, tallying five assists. With that total, he matched a franchise record for assists in a game.
He’s the fourth player to reach the mark, matching Mark Recchi (0 goals-5 assists—5 points on March 1, 2009), Martin St. Louis (0-5—5 on Nov. 18, 2010) and Darren Raddysh (0-5—5 on March 9, 2024). Hagel is the fourth-fastest player to reach five assists in a game, doing so in 29 minutes and 38 seconds of game time. He sits behind Wayne Gretzky (23:58 on March 4, 1988) and Mario Lemieux twice (25:02 on Nov. 1, 1995, and 26:06 on Feb. 23, 1989).
Hagel also tied an NHL record with four assists in the first period.
Lightning Score Early and Often in the First Period
The Lightning opened scoring 5:41 into the game on an unassisted goal by defenseman Nick Perbix. Just over two minutes later with the Lightning on the power play, Jake Guentzel, coming across the left circle, took a pass from Hagel and flicked it to the back of the net to make it 2-0.
The Avalanche cut the lead in half when Ivan Ivan poked a rebound save off goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy’s right pad and past him to make it 2-1. That is the closest the game would be the rest of the night.
Nikita Kucherov answered a minute later to make it 3-1, and the Lightning piled on to end the period. Luke Glendening picked a shorthanded goal – his first goal of the season overall – to make it 4-1. Anthony Cirelli scored in the final seconds of the period to give the Lightning a 5-1 lead after 20. Hagel assisted the final three goals of the period to reach the historic four-assist mark.
With that goal, Cirelli has scored in his sixth consecutive game. He is the first player to score in six consecutive games this season, pulling ahead of Alex Ovechkin and Sam Reinhart (twice), who have scored in five straight.
Cirelli is having a much stronger start to this season compared to last. In his first 20 games, he’s had nine goals and 13 assists for 22 points with seven multi-point games. Compare that to last season when he had just two goals and six assists for eight points through 20 games with just one multi-point game.
A Relatively Quiet Latter 2 Periods
After a period has six goals combined, it’s going to feel a bit quieter when the rest of the game has a normal level of scoring. Brayden Point scored the lone goal of the second period, assisted by Hagel to reach his fifth assist along with Kucherov. The score would remain 6-1 heading into the intermission.
Sixty-eight seconds into the third period, Ivan scored unassisted to pick up his second goal of the game and made it 6-2. The Lightning were to answer once again. Guentzel scored his second goal of the game and Mikey Eyssimont picked up his first goal of the season to wrap up scoring on the night.
Vasilevskiy saved 23-of-25 shots on the night (.920 save percentage). The defense also had a strong night in front of their goalie with 17 blocked shots.
The Lightning also went 2-for-2 on the power play. Special teams have started to look more like themselves in the last six games. They’ve scored on six of their 16 power-play opportunities in that span.
The Lightning are back on Wednesday night when they host the Washington Capitals. The Avalanche also play on Wednesday when they host the Vegas Golden Knights.
Three Stars of the Game:
- Brandon Hagel (0-5–5)
- Nikita Kucherov (1-2–3)
- Mikey Eyssimont (1-0–1)
