ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Tampa Bay Lightning spent most of Saturday night chasing the Minnesota Wild, then won it in overtime when Nikita Kucherov ripped a power-play wrist shot from the slot 3:23 into the extra period for a 4-3 victory at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul.
Minnesota jumped on the Lightning early. Blake Coleman scored 55 seconds in, and Maxim Shabanov made it 2-0 on a power play at 2:58 of the first period. Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper blamed mental mistakes for the rough opening but said his team controlled play over the final 58 minutes and kept believing it would break through.
Jake Guentzel finally got Tampa Bay on the board with a power-play slap shot at 16:34 of the second. Shabanov answered at 6:49 of the third to push the lead back to two, but Guentzel struck again at 13:44. With goalie Dennis Hildeby pulled for a sixth skater and a timeout just called, defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous evened the score at 3-3 with 3:31 left in regulation, scoring with Tampa Bay up two skaters.
Guentzel finished with two goals and an assist, and D’Astous had a goal and two assists. Brayden Point set up two goals and passed 700 career NHL points. Hildeby stopped 19 shots, while Calvin Pickard made 30 saves for Minnesota in front of 19,155 fans.
Cooper gave much of the credit for the turnaround to the trio of Scott Sabourin, Jeffrey Viel and Conor Geekie. Sabourin, who led all players with five hits, dropped the gloves with Marcus Foligno in the first period.
The win was the third straight for Tampa Bay, now 11-3-2, and stretched its point streak to six games. Minnesota fell to 12-3-4 but has earned points in eight straight.
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