The Tampa Bay Lightning opened the 2026-27 season with a 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Thursday at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
New York grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first period and then scored twice more in the middle frame. Nikita Kucherov scored the visitors\u2019 lone goal, with Brayden Point and Ilya Mikheyev getting the assists.<\/p>\n
Three different Rangers finished with two points, while Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves. Goalie Igor Shesterkin posted 24 stops for the Rangers and added an empty-net goal.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay will now prepare for the home opener this Saturday, a 7 p.m. matchup with the Washington Capitals.<\/p>\n
Scoring Summary
First period
NYR 1, TBL 0
5:34\u00a0Mika Zibanejad (1) – Pavel Dorofeyev, Adam Fox – PP
The Rangers opened the scoring on the game\u2019s first power play, as\u00a0Zibanejad buried his shot from the left faceoff circle following a broken stick for the Lightning.<\/p>\n
NYR 2, TBL 0
10:41\u00a0Dorofeyev (1) – Bjorkstrand
The Rangers built on the lead with a rush chance near the net following a Lightning turnover in the offensive zone.<\/p>\n
Shots on goal: TBL 9, NYR 7<\/p>\n
Second period
NYR 3, TBL 0
1:40\u00a0Eeli Tolvanen (1) – Braden Schneider, Noah Laba
The Rangers tripled the advantage when a pass to the crease early in the middle frame caromed into the Lightning net.<\/p>\n
NYR 3, TBL 1
7:59\u00a0Nikita Kucherov (1) – Ilya Mikheyev, Brayden Point
Tampa Bay got involved in the offense thanks to\u00a0Nikita Kucherov, whose centering pass bounced off a Rangers defenseman before crossing the goal line.<\/p>\n
NYR 4, TBL 1
16:01\u00a0Gabe Perreault (1) – Fox, Zibanejad
The Rangers reclaimed the three-goal lead with a redirection from\u00a0Gabe Perreault in front of the net.<\/p>\n
Shots on goal: NYR 11, TBL 10<\/p>\n
Third period
NYR 5, TBL 1
17:26 Igor\u00a0Shesterkin (1) – Unassisted – ENG
A goalie goal into the empty cage ended the night.<\/p>\n
Total shots: TBL 25, NYR 25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Lightning opened the 2026-27 season with a 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-416357","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\/416357","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=416357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}