By Jenny Masters
Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point scored in the shootout and regulation to lift the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 4-3 win over the Flyers.
Mathieu Joseph also scored in regulation for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning, who have won seven of nine. The Lightning came back from a 2-0 hole.
Claude Giroux scored twice and Travis Konecny also had a goal for the Flyers, who have lost eight straight regular-season games to Tampa Bay.
It looked like the Lightning had won it in regulation when Stamkos netted his team-leading ninth goal from a sharp angle with 1:56 left in the third. Hart couldn’t come up with a seemingly routine save as the puck wiggled through his equipment and just over the goal line.
Hart said there was a problem with his pads.
“Equipment malfunction there,” he said. “They usually should be sealed. I used (these) pads four times. Expect that from older sets. Something I’ll look into.”
Giroux netted his second of the game with 8.1 seconds left to force overtime. Derick Brassard won a faceoff back to Giroux, who fired a long wrist shot past the blocker side of Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“I saw there were a lot of bodies and just tried to sneak it to the net,” Giroux said. “It had eyes and went in.”
The Flyers had the best chances in the five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime, but Scott Laughton drew iron with a shot and Cam Atkinson was stopped by Vasilevskiy with a pad save.
Vasilevskiy made 27 saves. Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli each had a pair of assists for Tampa Bay.
“We’re playing the right way right now,” Tampa Bay center Ross Colton said.
Giroux’s highlight-reel tally opened the scoring 1:34 into the contest. Brassard slipped a pass to Giroux at the blue line, and the Flyers captain got behind Lightning defensemen Cal Foote and Mikhail Sergachev and in alone on Vasilevskiy. Giroux beautifully deked from his backhand to his forehand to net his sixth of the season.
“I mean, there’s no doubt that (Giroux) played a great game tonight,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said.
Konecny put Philadelphia up 2-0 later in the first when he fired the puck from a sharp angle past Vasilevskiy’s blocker.
Tampa Bay tied it with a pair of goals in the second.
Point converted 1:51 into the period on a power play, taking a pass from Stamkos and shooting with his backhand from in front of the crease that deflected off the handle of Hart’s stick and just inside the post.
