{"id":255863,"date":"2026-05-02T21:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255863\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:54:08","slug":"bolts-best-player-of-the-month-brandon-hagel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255863\/","title":{"rendered":"Bolts Best Player of the Month: Brandon Hagel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Six goals through six playoff games? Done. Gordie Howe hat trick? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/lightning\/news\/brandon-hagel-s-game-2-theatrics-ranked\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Let\u2019s talk about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Bolts Best Player of the Month for April is none other than Brandon Hagel, who\u2019s currently leading the Lightning through a pressure cooker Round 1 against the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Despite missing several games, Hagel has posted a 7-2-9 stat line through eight games dating back to April 1. And he\u2019s especially come alive in the playoffs, putting the Bolts on the board when they\u2019ve needed it most. His Game 2 theatrics powered the Lightning to an overtime win in Game 2 at home. And then his two goals stunned the Habs at the Bell Centre in Game 4 for a comeback victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a 200-foot player, plays on both sides of the puck, and he&#8217;s the hottest guy in the league right now,\u201d Jake Guentzel said after Game 4. \u201cHe&#8217;s done it all year, and obviously he&#8217;s a special player for our team. It\u2019s been fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hagel and the Bolts will now look to take the series in an enormous Game 7 at Benchmark International Arena Sunday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six goals through six playoff games? Done. Gordie Howe hat trick? Let\u2019s talk about it. The Bolts Best&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-255863","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\/255863","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=255863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}