Mathieu Joseph scored at 3:25 of overtime as the Tampa Bay Lightning claimed their ninth straight win over Los Angeles, topping the visiting Kings 3-2 on Tuesday night.
After goalies Jonathan Quick and Andrei Vasilevskiy made incredible one-on-one saves in the first half of the three-on-three session, Joseph led an odd-man rush from the right side and fired a shot on Quick.
The netminder made the initial stop, but the puck hit his leg and trundled in for the winner — his fifth marker of the season.
Victor Hedman and Taylor Raddysh scored for the Lightning, who are 6-1-0 in their past seven and beat the Kings for the sixth straight time on home ice.
Tampa Bay’s nine-game winning streak against the Kings dates back to Jan. 16, 2017.
Vasilevskiy stopped 28 of 30 shots and moved to 15-4-3 for the Lightning, who are 7-4 in overtime.
Opening a four-game East Coast swing, Los Angeles got goals from Drew Doughty and Viktor Arvidsson.
Quick entered the contest on quite a streak — 3-0-0 with a shutout in his last trio of starts. He surrendered three tallies on 30 shots to fall to 7-5-4.
In their first home game in almost two weeks, the Lightning opened a brief two-game homestand by having to do some early work on the penalty kill after Steven Stamkos went off for hooking.
However, Doughty put the Kings up first at 9:06 by scoring for the third time this season — all on the man advantage. He hammered a blast that was screened by Alex Iafallo, who earned the primary assist. Anze Kopitar also posted a helper.
But on a delayed penalty and with an extra skater on, the Lightning cashed in when Hedman one-timed his sixth goal with just under two minutes to go.
With 15 seconds left, Quick slid over with a stretching glove save on Ondrej Palat’s shot into a wide-open net, keeping the match knotted at 1.
In the first half-minute of the second period, Arvidsson scored when Matt Roy’s long shot hit the Lightning’s Ross Colton and deflected in off Arvidsson for a 2-1 lead.
Raddysh tied it with his own deflection, redirecting Jan Rutta’s point shot for a 2-2 score at 14:19.
Quick stopped Stamkos on a breakaway inside the first four minutes of the third, and neither club produced much offense in the regulation’s remainder.
–Field Level Media
