Lightning continue winning ways at home with victory over Red Wings

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Nov 3, 2026

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — Before the Lightning’s optional morning skate Tuesday, Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point worked on their own inside an empty Benchmark International Arena.

They did stick-handling drills, gave each other one-timer feeds relaying the puck from one dot to the other, and Kucherov fed Point passes in the bumper between the hashes for the catch-and-shoot play that the duo has connected on so many times on the power play.

It’s the work that no one sees that leads to the payoff when everyone is watching. And even though Kucherov’s future with the Lightning is uncertain after a surprise trade request, he’s living up to what he promised, doing everything he can to help his team win games.

And once game time arrived some 8 1/2 hours later, Point and Kucherov’s early work certainly paid off.

Kucherov set up Point for the Lightning’s first two goals of the night, setting the stage for a 4-2 win over the Red Wings in Tampa Bay’s first division game.

The Lightning (9-3-2, 20 points) set a franchise record with seven straight wins at home to open the season.

It’s strange that it took 14 games for the Lightning to face their first division opponent, but it means that they’ll face a gauntlet of Atlantic teams down the road.

Over the past four games, the Lightning had lost some of their defensive structure, allowing five goals a game. But Tuesday, they dominated the Red Wings all over the stat sheet.

Point has four goals in his last four games after scoring just once in the Lightning’s first 10. He scored his fifth goal in Tampa Bay’s 14th game. He didn’t reach five goals last season until his 24th game.

Point opened the scoring on the power play 7:54 into the game, as defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous fed Kucherov at the right circle. Kucherov faked a one-timer and tapped a pass to Point between three Detroit skaters, and Point wristed a shot past Red Wings goaltender John Gibson.

Point then gave the Lightning a 2-0 lead, dumping a puck into the right corner that Kucherov chased down and driving to the front of the net, where he took a feed from Kucherov and beat Gibson again.

After Anthony Cirelli scored to give the Lightning a 3-0 lead 8:41 into the second period, Tampa Bay had to fight off a Detroit surge after goals by Lucas Raymond and a power-play goal by J.T. Compher.

It wasn’t pretty, but they were able to protect a one-goal lead, getting a key penalty kill in the final seven minutes of regulation after a tripping penalty on Erik Cernak. Ryan McDonagh’s empty-netter with a second left provided the final margin.