Brayden Point has been knocking on the door all season. On Tuesday night, he finally kicked it in twice.
Point scored two first-period goals to jump-start Tampa Bay’s 4-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings, and the Lightning kept their home roll going with a franchise-best seventh straight victory to open the season. Anthony Cirelli and Ryan McDonagh added the other goals, while Nikita Kucherov collected two more assists.
Tampa Bay set the tone early, but it took a little time for the game to tilt fully in its favor. Detroit arrived on tired legs, and the Lightning made them feel it once the first power play arrived eight minutes in. Before that, Andrei Vasilevskiy had already flashed the glove side of his game with a sharp blocker save on Alex DeBrincat after a deflected pass dropped right onto his stick.
Then Point got loose in the slot. A quick passing sequence put the puck on his blade, and with no one closing him down, he got a shot away that wasn’t clean but still slipped under John Gibson’s pads for the opening goal. Tampa Bay never really looked back from there.
The pressure kept coming. Another power play followed, and even though the Lightning didn’t cash in, they kept Detroit pinned in its own end.
Point struck again soon after, finishing a feed from Kucherov in the slot with a wrist shot that beat Gibson cleanly. Kucherov now has five points since making his trade request.
The Lightning didn’t stop at 2-0. Jeff Viel worked around a pair of defenders and rang one off the crossbar, and Geekie had a follow-up chance in front that Gibson stopped.
By then, Detroit had been squeezed almost completely out of the period. J.T.
Compher’s shot on goal with 11:33 left and a blocked attempt with 5:08 remaining were the Red Wings’ only real marks on the scoreboard in the opening frame.
The numbers told the story of just how one-sided that first period was: Tampa Bay outchanced Detroit 21-3 and out-attempted it 37-6. Gibson took a beating and did not return for the second period, with Daniil Tarasov taking over to start the middle frame.
Tampa Bay stretched the lead to 3-0 when Anthony Cirelli buried a pass from Gage Goncalves at 8:41 of the second. J.J.
Moser helped set it up with a feed down low, and the assist gave him his first point of the season. Detroit answered later in the period when Compher fed Lucas Raymond behind the net and Raymond snapped a shot through traffic and high past Vasilevskiy.
Detroit had a few more looks after that, but Vasilevskiy came up with a huge stop late in the period, robbing Raymond on a one-timer from the slot with just over a minute left. That save mattered, because the Lightning have had some trouble protecting multi-goal leads lately, and they needed that cushion heading into the third.
The Red Wings made it uncomfortable anyway. Compher’s power-play goal with 14:31 left cut the margin to 3-2, and Tampa Bay had to survive a stretch of back-to-back penalties by Max Crozier and Erik Cernak. Ryan McDonagh helped keep the lead intact with a strong play on the far post to deny what could have been a sure goal.
Vasilevskiy handled the rest. He stopped 12 of 13 shots in the third period and turned aside a couple more during Detroit’s 6-on-5 push at the end. The Red Wings did a good job of keeping the Lightning under pressure once Tarasov came off the ice, and Brandon Hagel even had an empty-net chance taken away when he was stripped from behind.
McDonagh eventually settled everything with one second left, curling the puck from nearly 200 feet out into the empty net.
Detroit’s comeback attempt was fueled by the power play, where it logged nine attempts and four shots on goal with the extra skater. At five-on-five, though, the game was much more even, even if the teams only played 11:08 at even strength.
For Tampa Bay, it was a solid win against a good Detroit team that was also running on tired legs. The start was exactly what the Lightning needed, and the finish, while not perfect, was cleaner than the one they had against Nashville.
In Other News...
Lightning Trade Chatter Suddenly Centers On A Win-Now Gamble
Trade talk around the Lightning has taken an unusually bold turn, with the conversation no longer limited to depth moves or deadline tinkering. The focus is on how general manager Julian BriseBois keeps Tampa Bay in win-now mode while trying to preserve a roster capable of staying in the race year after year, and that has pushed the discussion into territory the franchise rarely entertains publicly.
The speculation has only grown because the idea is not about a routine hockey shuffle, but about a massive swing that would reshape the lineup and the clubs future in one move. Around the league, the kind of return Tampa Bay would even consider is being framed through elite names and elite value, which is exactly why this remains more theory than reality for now. [Read more 🡒]
Lightning Fans Should Be Watching Where The Kucherov Rumors Go Next
The chatter around Nikita Kucherov has a familiar feel for Lightning fans, because any time a star of his caliber becomes part of the rumor mill, the questions tend to spread fast. Tampa Bay general manager Julien BriseBois has already made the teams position clear: Kucherov is not getting moved this season, even with Toronto floated in the background as a possible destination.
Where this gets interesting is the longer view. Kucherov is expected to be on the market as a free agent after the 2026-27 season, and the Maple Leafs are among the teams that could circle back then if they still want to chase him. For Toronto, though, that would require major salary-cap maneuvering and roster changes before anything realistic could happen, which is why Lightning fans should keep an eye on where the rumors go next rather than where they are right now. [Read more 🡒]
Lightning Get An Early Atlantic Test They Can't Ignore
The Lightning are about to get their first look at an Atlantic Division opponent this season, and it comes at a useful point in the schedule. Detroit visits Tampa Bay for the clubs 14th game, giving the Lightning an early measuring stick against a division rival that has been playing well lately and has built a strong record over its last nine games.
Tampa Bay will have to handle that test without Zemgus Girgensons, who is out with an injury, but there is some help coming back on the blue line. Erik Cernak is set to rejoin the lineup after sitting out Saturday in Nashville, giving the Lightning a little more stability as they try to keep pace in a matchup that carries a bit more weight than a typical November game. [Read more 🡒]