Tampa Bay’s Emil Lilleberg put in the tiebreaking goal at 8:51, and the Lightning rallied to earn points in their seventh straight game with a 4-2 win over the visiting Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon.
Lilleberg, who posted a career-high three points, gave the Lightning (45-21-6, 96 points) their first lead at 8:51 as part of a four-man rush that ended with the defenseman taking a pass from Brandon Hagel and flipping home a backhander off Ottawa goaltender James Reimer (23 saves).
Jake Guentzel sealed it with a breakaway tally at 17:48 as the Lightning moved to 5-0-2 in the past seven matches and 12-1-1 in the first half of back-to-back sets this season.
Brandon Hagel and Charle-Edouard D’Astous had a goal and an assist apiece. Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves in his NHL-best 35th win.
The Lightning skated without two key forwards sidelined by illness: Nikita Kucherov, who entered the match tied with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid for the NHL lead with 121 points, and Nick Paul.
The Senators (38-25-10, 86 points) got goals from Dylan Cozens and Jordan Spence but fell to 4-1-1 in their past six contests.
Ottawa again played without its best two defensemen, Thomas Chabot (third game missed) and Jake Sanderson (11th).
With both teams coming off Thursday losses beyond regulation, Ottawa scored on the game’s first shift just 18 seconds in and soon added another.
Cozens found a pass that caromed off the half boards and hit the net for the 25th time by blindly firing a shot from the bottom of the right circle.
Following two big rebounds that put Vasilevskiy out of position, Spence buried one for a 2-0 lead at 4:25 as the visitors controlled the flow of play and outshot Tampa Bay 5-2 early on.
In the second period, Hagel cut Ottawa’s lead in half at 3:37 after D’Astous brought the puck in around Reimer’s net and drew the goalie out. Hagel then netted his 34th tally.
D’Astous tied it 1:37 later from the high slot, and the match became much more physical and feistier to set up the final 20 minutes.
