TAMPA, Fla. — Fighting off a four-minute penalty late in the second period, Mathieu Joseph forced a turnover in the neutral zone before racing down the ice Thursday night against the Devils.
He took a quick survey and saw Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to his left, but his Lightning teammate wasn’t open for a pass.
Instead, Joseph took a shot at New Jersey goaltender Jon Gillies. And while his initial attempt was blocked, he quickly grabbed the rebound and flipped it over Gillies’ pad for a 2-1 lead and his second shorthanded goal of the season en route to a 3-2 win in the opener of a three-game homestand.
Tampa Bay has won six of its past seven games.
The Lightning started the game in a rut against the Devils, spending the first 10 minutes of the first period reacting to New Jersey instead of controlling the puck themselves. The Devils tallied seven straight shots by the halfway mark; the Lightning had two.
It didn’t help that Mikhail Sergachev’s early penalty aided the Devils, as Damon Severson found the back of the net against Andrei Vasilevskiy on the power play for a 1-0 lead 4:33 into the game.
Alex Killorn put the Lightning on the board in the second period with Tampa Bay’s first power-play opportunity of the night.
Victor Hedman stood at the point and took a shot toward Gillies, with a wide-open Killorn waiting in the crease. The forward quickly collected the rebound and backhanded the puck past Gillies to tie it 1:46 into the period.
Anthony Cirelli had a clear path for a shorthanded goal, but a hooking penalty on Severson prevented the conversion. Cirelli was awarded a penalty shot, but Gillies turned that away.
Then came Joseph’s goal on the penalty kill. It was his eighth goal of the season and his first shorthanded goal on the rush. His first shorthanded goal (Dec. 5 at Philadelphia) came via poor puck play from Carter Hart that left an open net. The team’s record is 7-0-1 when Joseph scores.
In the third period, New Jersey’s Jack Hughes tied it at 2 with 9:05 remaining in regulation. It was the first even-strength goal of the game.
Exactly one minute after Hughes’ goal, Cirelli made good on his earlier attempt by scoring the winner off a clean pass from Brayden Point, who found him in the crease.
