{"id":217281,"date":"2026-04-03T10:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T10:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217281\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T10:02:12","slug":"cirelli-gets-hat-trick-lightning-defeat-penguins-to-reach-100-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/217281\/","title":{"rendered":"Cirelli gets hat trick, Lightning defeat Penguins to reach 100 points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cirelli gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 5:06 of the first period. Goncalves intercepted a pass from Penguins forward Ben Kindel<\/a> in the defensive zone and put a snap shot off Skinner’s blocker from above the right face-off circle. The puck rebounded to Cirelli in the slot, where he buried it to the glove side.<\/p>\n

Rakell tied it 1-1 at 7:01. After Girard skated behind the net, the puck deflected off two Tampa Bay defenders to Rakell, who went skate-to-stick behind his back and stuffed it past Vasilevskiy at the left post.<\/p>\n

Chinakhov put the Penguins up 2-1 at 16:10 when he lifted a backhand\u00a0from the right circle under Vasilevskiy’s right arm.<\/p>\n

“We needed more to win the game,” Chinakhov said. “We need to play more like we’ve played the last couple of games. They played pretty good structurally. We need to play our game. Tonight we were a little off I think.”<\/p>\n

Cirelli evened the game 2-2 just 11 seconds into the second period, scoring his second goal while on a short-handed breakaway with a backhand shot over Skinner’s left pad.<\/p>\n

“The first minute and last minute of the periods are huge,” Cirelli said. “The guys responded and came out strong for the rest of the game and got back to our game.”<\/p>\n

Brayden Point<\/a> gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead at 14:08.\u00a0Guentzel followed the rebound of his shot behind the net and knocked it out in front, where Point chipped the puck over Skinner’s glove.<\/p>\n

Zemgus Girgensons<\/a> increased it to 4-2 with his 100th NHL goal at 19:05. Yanni Gourde<\/a> sent a backhanded pass from behind the net to Girgensons in front, where he went forehand-backhand and tucked the puck around Skinner’s left pad.<\/p>\n

“Once we found our legs and were making small plays with the puck we got our chances,” Point said. “And tonight the guys buried them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cirelli gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 5:06 of the first period. Goncalves intercepted a pass from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-217281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}