Lightning Push Winning Streak to Five Games; Guentzel's Pair of Points Lead Charge Against Mammoth

By Derek Caldwell- Thunderstruck Sports

Jake Guentzel scored the game winning goal with 7:52 remaining in the third period and tallied an assist on an Anthony Cirelli 2nd period goal to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 4-2 victory on the road against the Utah Mammoth on Sunday afternoon.

The Bolts have pushed their win streak to five games on the back of their stars delivering night in and night out. Sunday afternoon was no different. It didn't come without difficulty as an early season Utah Mammoth team finds themselves heading into this game with a 8-3-0 record and atop the Central Division.

Utah got the scoring started early with a Lawson Crouse breakaway goal just 5:55 into the game. Jonas Johansson was beat by Crouse top shelf after Gage Goncalves was unable to receive a Charle-Edouard D'Astous pass in the Utah zone due to a collision with a Mammoth player.

Late in the first period Zemgus Girgensons set up a great give and go between Yanni Gourde and Emil Lilleberg with a great drop pass to Gourde as the Lightning entered the Utah zone. Once Gourde received the pass he dished it cross ice to Lilleberg who then dished it back to Gourde for a wide open back door tuck to knot the score at 1-1.

Anthony Cirelli scored his team leading seventh goal from a simple backhand pass off the boards from Guentzel to make the score 2-1. Cirelli was waiting at the top of the left circle and buried a beautiful one timer to give the Bolts their first lead of the day.

Utah pushed back early in the 3rd period (2:21) to tie the score at 2-2 as Kailer Yamamoto went top shelf on Johansson after receiving a nice cross-ice, backhand pass from Ian Cole (his second assist of the game).

Guentzel's game winner was off of a nice wrap around shot attempt when he popped out from Gretzky's office to the slot and went short side on Karl Vejmelka with 7:54 remaining in regulation. Brandon Hagel potted the insurance policy empty netter with 15 seconds left in the game to give the Lightning a 4-2 victory.

JoJo stopped 25 of 27 shots from the Mammoth to earn his third win of the season. The 30 year old Swedish Goaltender is currently sitting at a 2.78 GAA and .916 save percentage. He has definitely proven he is capable of taking some of the workload off of Andrei Vasilevskiy which could prove to be vital down the stretch for the 2025-26 season.

The Lightning are now 6-4-2 on the season and sit firmly in 3rd place in the Atlantic Division. Tampa will be back in action on Tuesday, November 4th at 9:30pm EST as they continue their road trip against the Colorado Avalanche.