Lightning power play gets off the schneid in win over Minnesota

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Oct 8, 2026

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Lightning eventually were going to break through on the power play, and their 0-for-13 mark three games into the season didn’t necessarily reflect how many chances they had created on the man advantage.

It seemed that if there was someone who was due, it was defenseman John Carlson, who had consistently put pucks on net from the point position. Thursday night against the Wild, it was Carlson who broke the Lightning out of their drought, scoring the team’s first man-advantage goal of the season.

Carlson’s second goal of the night was huge, not only because it gave the power play the boost it desperately needed but because it was the eventual game-winner in their 3-2 victory at Benchmark International Arena.

The win was the Lightning’s third straight — all at home — after their season-opening loss to the Rangers in New York. The team returns to the Big Apple for games against the Islanders on Saturday and Rangers on Tuesday.

The Lightning experimented with a new power-play look in practice Wednesday, shifting Carlson to the left circle to give Nikita Kucherov a right-handed one-timer shot there, and putting Charle-Edouard D’Astous up top. But come game time Thursday, the Lightning stuck with the the same look, and it paid off.

It seemed simple enough. With Tampa Bay leading 2-1, Kucherov drifted into the right corner near the goal line and took a pass from Jake Guentzel. Kucherov took two steps toward the net, drawing the Minnesota penalty killers his way and leaving Carlson uncovered in the high slot. Carlson had a wide-open shot and beat goaltender Jesper Wallstedt on his blocker side.

New Lightning backup goaltender Dennis Hildeby won his first start with Tampa Bay, stopping 34 of 36 shots.

The Lightning took a quick 2-0 lead by scoring twice within a 36-second stretch early in the first period, both times by taking away Wallstedt’s line of sight with traffic in front of the net.

Anthony Cirelli redirected Erik Cernak’s puck on net from above the right circle, opening the scoring 5:26 into the game. Carlson then took a feed from Kucherov and wristed a shot from the center point, through a screen by Gage Goncalves and into the back of the net.

With two primary assists, Kucherov is now seven points shy of Steven Stamkos’ all-time franchise scoring record of 1,137 points. Kucherov’s five assists and six points through four games this season lead the team.

After Quinn Hughes cut the Lightning lead to 2-1 in the second period, former Tampa Bay forward Blake Coleman answered Carlson’s power-play goal with one of his own, beating Hildeby clean on a wrister from the left circle.