Lightning fight back to give themselves a chance but fall to Hurricanes

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Mar 14, 2026

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Lightning might not have been the best team on the ice Saturday night at Benchmark International Arena against the Hurricanes, but they put themselves in a position to earn their second straight win going into the third period.

Playing against a Carolina team with the most points in the Eastern Conference, Tampa Bay was looking to build on Thursday’s win over Detroit before heading West for a four-game trip through Seattle and Western Canada.

Despite falling into a two-goal, first-period deficit, the Lightning tied the game with a pair of goals over a 1-minute, 21-second stretch of the second to tie the game going into the final 20 minutes.

But Jordan Martinook’s goal midway through the third sent the Lightning to a 4-2 loss, their seventh in 10 games since the Olympic break.

Martinook flung the puck from the left sideboards, and it hit off defenseman Victor Hedman before wobbling past goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy on the glove side inside the far post for the decisive goal.

The Lightning had a glorious chance after pulling Vasilevskiy for an extra attacker when Anthony Cirelli gained the puck in the corner and fed the trailing Nikita Kucherov in front of the net. But Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen stopped Kucherov, and the Hurricanes scored seconds later into an empty net to seal the game.

Carolina opened the scoring in the first minute when the Lightning were caught overloaded to one side after Hedman was whistled for a delayed hooking call after Andrei Svechnikov broke free.

Vasilevskiy stopped the initial shot, but the Hurricanes maintained possession and three Lightning skaters went out to Sean Walker at the blue line. Walker fed the puck to Sebastian Aho in the right corner, and Aho found Svechnikov alone skating toward the front of the net. He beat Vasilevskiy 38 seconds into the game.

Carolina went up 2-0 when a Lightning neutral-zone turnover sprung Aho for a breakaway. Vasilevskiy stopped Aho’s initial shot, but the long rebound rolled to Svechnikov at the left circle, and he fed a wide-open Aho below the right circle.

A tight checking game provided a number of rush opportunities, and the Lightning started their comeback in the second period when Hedman poked the puck forward to Yanni Gourde as he sped into the offensive zone unmarked on the right wing. Before Carolina defenseman Alexander Nikishin could close in, Gourde fired a wrist shot from the circle that beat Andersen with 5:50 left in the period.

Defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous then led a rush, found Brayden Point on the right wing and jumped in on the play, scoring his first goal in 30 games from the front of the net with 4:29 left in the second.