Hockey is officially back at Benchmark International Arena, as the Tampa Bay Lightning opened the 2026 NHL preseason with a 2-1 win against the Nashville Predators on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Lightning got off to a strong start with a pair of first period goals and never relented the lead.<\/p>\n
“I’m not going to be able to poke holes in too many guys’ games tonight,\u201d Lightning coach Jon Cooper said postgame. \u201cEverybody, you ask them to do the job, they passed the test.”<\/p>\n
With a shorter training camp and fewer preseason games, Tampa Bay\u2019s roster featured much of the expected opening night lineup. Offseason addition Ilya Mikheyev skated alongside Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov and wasted no time in making a strong first impression.<\/p>\n
The winger-\u2014signed to a four-year contract on July 1\u2014opened the scoring just 93 seconds into the game by deflecting a point shot from fellow 2026 free agent signee John Carlson.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you score, the team scores in the first few shifts, it\u2019s good for confidence as a team and helps you feel confidence right away,” Mikheyev said.<\/p>\n
Carlson skated alongside JJ Moser on the team\u2019s top pairing. The newest addition to the blue line led Tampa Bay in ice time, playing 21:56.<\/p>\n
Nashville tied the score in the game\u2019s seventh minute when Brady Martin made a move at the blue line and then buried his shot at the bottom of the faceoff circle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While NHL veterans kickstarted Sunday\u2019s effort for Tampa Bay, fans got to see some of the organization\u2019s younger forwards, too\u2014Sam O\u2019Reilly centered a line with Benjamin Rautiainen and Conor Geekie, and it was that trio who regained the Lightning lead late in the first period.<\/p>\n
Following an extended shift of offensive zone time, O\u2019Reilly pressured a Nashville player into a risky pass. The puck landed on the tape of an open Geekie in the high slot, where the 22-year-old Bolt fired his shot through the glove of Nashville goalie Juuse Saros for the 2-1 advantage with just under five minutes left.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw the puck go up there, tracked back hard, tried to go stick on puck, and I got a stick on it,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said of the play. \u201cThen thankfully Geeks was right there and made no mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay also got to see a pair of recent second-round draft picks in forwards Ethan Czata and Oleg Kulebiakin on Sunday. As a whole, Cooper said the youngsters showed well.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly was busy on Sunday, joining Mikheyev as Tampa Bay\u2019s busiest penalty kill pairing while winning six of his eight faceoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great because when they had the faceoffs on the right side, he won them,\u201d Cooper said of O\u2019Reilly. \u201cSome of these kids, you’re going to get to watch play some of these games. You\u2019ve got to put them in these situations and see what they can do and see where they can excel, and I thought he was excellent all the way around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay went a perfect 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, and the O\u2019Reilly and Mikheyev combo also created some offensive looks while shorthanded.<\/p>\n
Mikheyev led all Lightning forwards in shorthanded time on ice at 3:57, and O\u2019Reilly tied for second with 3:35.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought everybody tried really hard. They tried to do what we asked them,\u201d Cooper said of the win. \u201cI didn’t think we gave up a whole ton, and we got to roll lines, and then we got to play. And then there were special teams involved. You don’t want to ever take penalties in the regular season, but I don’t mind taking a few in the preseason because you get a look at your PK and your power play. I thought everything worked out well, and then everybody got away from the game healthy, so it was a win all the way around.”<\/p>\n
Andrei Vasilevskiy wasn\u2019t very busy in his preseason debut but played the entire game. He finished with 12 saves on 13 shots faced.<\/p>\n
The Lightning will aim for a similar result on Tuesday when the same teams go head-to-head in preseason game two, set for 8 p.m. ET in Nashville.<\/p>\n
Benjamin\u2019s Three Stars:<\/p>\n
Ilya Mikheyev, TBL (Goal)<\/p>\n
Conor Geekie, TBL (Game-winning goal)<\/p>\n
Sam O\u2019Reilly, TBL (Assist, 75% faceoff percentage)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hockey is officially back at Benchmark International Arena, as the Tampa Bay Lightning opened the 2026 NHL preseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-405845","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\/405845","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=405845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}