{"id":418499,"date":"2026-10-04T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/418499\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T14:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T14:30:08","slug":"lightning-get-back-to-winning-battles-to-bounce-back-from-opening-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/418499\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning get back to \u2018winning battles\u2019 to bounce back from opening loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeding off the energy of the crowd in their home opener, the Lightning jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Charle-Edouard D’Astous<\/a> and Conor Geekie<\/a>\u00a0and built lopsided advantages in shots on goal (14-5), shot attempts (25-12) and face-offs (12-2) through the first 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought there was just compete,\u201d said forward Brandon Hagel<\/a>, who had two assists. \u201cI think that’s something maybe we thought was missing last game. I didn’t think anything last game had to do with structure-wise or that stuff. I think it was just compete and battle wins. We came out here, competed in the face-off dot, competed all over the ice, in the D zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe we could have deserved a few more goals, but we stuck with it and were able to grind one out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper had faith that his mostly veteran group of players would rebound from the disappointment against the Rangers. But after a day off on Friday, he and his staff also provided some reminders in a meeting before the morning skate Saturday of what needed to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job is to put a thumb on them a little bit, and they responded,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cI\u2019m never sitting here saying two games is adversity, but you learn a little bit about your team, and we learned some tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe it helped that the Capitals played the previous night, defeating the reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 in their season opener. But the Lightning also put in the effort needed to take advantage of that.<\/p>\n

And after Washington pushed back in the second period, getting a redirection goal from Justin Sourdif<\/a>\u00a0at 7:04 to cut its deficit to 2-1, Tampa Bay\u2019s determination did not waver.<\/p>\n

Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>, the Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL\u2019s top goalie last season, did his part by making 19 saves, including one with his right pad to stop Tom Wilson<\/a>\u2019s bid for a tying power-play goal at 10:50 of the third period. The Lightning also blocked 19 Capitals\u2019 shot attempts, outhit them 30-24 and eventually were rewarded with Jake Guentzel<\/a>\u2019s clinching empty-net goal with 2:05 remaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe we came out a little flat on Thursday, but that game was past us, and we weren’t going to let it happen again,\u201d said Geekie, whose goal from the right circle at 16:30 of the first period proved to be the game-winner. \u201cI think every guy stepped up. (Emil Lilleberg<\/a>) with the fight. (Victor Hedman<\/a>) with the big block. I can go down the whole roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think everyone was great tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feeding off the energy of the crowd in their home opener, the Lightning jumped out to a 2-0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-418499","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\/418499","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=418499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}