At the same time, Vasilevskiy’s teammates were thanking him for changing the momentum in the game.
And for once, it wasn’t for a save he made.
Down by four goals, Oliver Bjorkstrand scored a power-play goal at 10:28 of the second to bring the Lightning to within 5-2 of the Bruins.
Then, 33 seconds later, chaos broke out.
At 11:01 of the second period, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman took issue with Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel hacking at him and swatted the Lightning forward. Vasilevskiy, witnessing what was going on at the other end of the ice, immediately charged out of his net. Upon seeing his counterpart do that, so, too, did Swayman.
Within seconds, a goalie fight had broken out.
“Obviously, that’s what 20 of us do for each other,” Hagel said, noting how the Lightning stand up for each other, including their goalie. “I got a glove to the head. Obviously, (Vasilevskiy) didn’t like that. He probably didn’t like all the goals going in because of us, either.
“So that was the turning point of the game.”
Guentzel couldn’t agree more.
“That’s was the game-changing moment for our team,” he said. “And that’s what we needed.”
Cue the comeback.
Darren Raddysh scored at 15:50, followed by a goal from Nick Paul at 16:13. Suddenly, the Lightning had cut the Bruins lead to 5-4, thanks to three power-play goals in the span of 5:45.
Nikita Kucherov then tied the game at 11:50 of the third period, setting up Guentzel’s overtime heroics.
“We just had to get back to the basics,” Kucherov, who had four points (one goal, three assists), said. “Obviously, the first period wasn’t good and the start of the second wasn’t good.”