{"id":433869,"date":"2026-10-21T09:26:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/433869\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:26:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:26:29","slug":"tampa-bays-big-second-period-kucherovs-third-period-goal-spark-lightning-to-6-2-win-over-vgk-in-vegas-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/433869\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay&#8217;s Big Second Period, Kucherov&#8217;s Third Period Goal Spark Lightning to 6-2 Win Over VGK In Vegas Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95293 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-AAA-8332.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95294 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-AAA-4382.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1152\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95301 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-DDD-8694.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95302 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-AAA-4391.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1638\" height=\"2048\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 Story by Alan Snel\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photos by Hugh Byrne<\/p>\n<p>LAS VEGAS, Nevada \u2014 The Vegas Golden Knights and Tampa Bay Lightning could make for one entertaining Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n<p>The perennial playoff teams and Cup contenders with talented rosters of big names tangled tonight at T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n<p>But tonight was not that game after the first period.<\/p>\n<p>After both teams split four goals in a roller-coaster first period, the Lightning scored four straight goals for a 6-2 win. Tampa Bay is now 7-2-0, while Vegas dropped to 8-3-0.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95312 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-DDD-8626.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1152\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The VGK announced attendance at 17,017. Fixed-seat capacity is 17,367 in the arena.<\/p>\n<p>The Knights were sloppy with the puck as Tampa scored four unassisted goals of its six tallies.<\/p>\n<p>VGK coach Ryan Craig on puck management in his postgame presser: \u201cWe didn\u2019t help ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also a VGK connection to Tampa Bay. Craig was drafted by Lightning in 2002 and played for the TBL from 2005-2010, including several years under former Tampa Bay and Vegas coach John \u201cTorts\u201d Tortorella.<\/p>\n<p>He mentioned he still knows some folks in the Tampa Bay organization. But other than that, it was \u201cGame 11 for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95290\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-BBB-8391-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/>VGK coach and former Lightning player Ryan Craig<\/p>\n<p>The VGK\u2019s Ivan Barbashev scored his first goal of the campaign in the season\u2019s 11th game and goal-scoring machine Mark Stone notched his eighth while killing a penalty as the Knights and Bolts were tied at 2-2 after the first 20 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95291 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-BBB-8512.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>But Tampa Bay\u2019s Anthony Cirelli scored two straight goals in the second for a Tampa Bay 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy also was rock solid in the middle stanza.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95306 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-EEE-9366.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1152\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Victor Hedman scored his second of the season late in the period.<\/p>\n<p>After two periods: Tampa Bay 5 Vegas 2<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95298 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-CCC-8596.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>VGK goalie Carter Hart yielded five goals in 14 shots through two periods.<\/p>\n<p>Then, there was a vintage\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/espn\/status\/2112771559475531900\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nikita Kucherov <\/a> play, when he poke checked the puck and scored a breakaway goal on Hart for a 6-2 Tampa Bay advantage in the third period.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95304 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/VGK-Lightning-10-20-26-EEE-9571.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1364\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Tonight\u2019s NHL scores:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-95318 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/unnamed-37.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\"  \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">PSA<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-47153 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/changelanes1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"299\"  \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-95021\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_3215-1-1-1024x559-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"559\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Story by Alan Snel\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Photos by Hugh Byrne LAS VEGAS,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[34364,16551,170093,170094,128106,170095,16976,170096,135,137,136,16555],"class_list":["post-433869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-andrei-vasilevskiy","tag-anthony-cirelli","tag-carter-hart","tag-ivan-barbashev","tag-john-tortorella","tag-mark-stone","tag-nikita-kucherov","tag-ryan-craig","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-victor-hedman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433869","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=433869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}