Tampa Bay trailed by two goals before three minutes had been played. Jake Guentzel spent the rest of Saturday night climbing out of that hole.
Guentzel scored twice and assisted on Nikita Kucherov's overtime winner, and the Lightning beat the Minnesota Wild 4-3 at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul. He factored in three of Tampa Bay's four goals. Dennis Hildeby stopped 19 shots. NHL.com put the Lightning at 11-3-2 after a third consecutive win and a point streak that now covers six games (4-0-2).
Blake Coleman opened the scoring 55 seconds in, beating Hildeby with a wrist shot inside the far post. Maxim Shabanov made it 2-0 at 2:58, scoring on a power-play backhand in front.
"There's a lot of wins in different ways during the year, but this was a bit more of a character win for us," coach Jon Cooper said, per NHL.com. "We had that terrible first two minutes, now we're down 2-0, on just mental mistakes. I was a little frustrated with that. But I thought the next 58, we gamed it out."
Guentzel, then the late flurry
Guentzel made it 2-1 at 16:34 of the second, beating Calvin Pickard with a slap shot while Tampa Bay still had 22 seconds left on a four-minute advantage. Charle-Edouard D'Astous and Kucherov assisted. The Lightning's site called it Guentzel's team-leading ninth goal.
Shabanov scored again at 6:49 of the third, an unassisted rush that he finished through Hildeby's pads to make it 3-1. Guentzel answered at 13:44, finishing a sequence from Brayden Point in front to make it 3-2. That was his 10th goal of the season.
"It's not the way we want to start, but stayed with it," Guentzel said. "Can't get too down. A lot of hockey left. So, I thought we pushed back. It's obviously nice to get the win."
D'Astous tied the game at 16:29, scoring on a 6-on-4 power play after Hildeby left for an extra attacker, NHL.com reported. John Carlson and Point assisted. The Lightning had used a timeout eight seconds earlier. The club said D'Astous also had two assists, a three-point night that set a career high.
