Tampa Gets Burned By The Devils Early, Can't Mount Third Period Comeback

The Tampa Bay Lightning fell 5-3 to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night at Benchmark International Arena.

The score after one period was 3-2. That is, three goals for New Jersey to two shots for Tampa Bay. The Devils were relentless in their pursuit of the puck in the opening frame. The Bolts couldn't muster any offense whatsoever. Constantly giving the puck up in the neutral zone and attempting to make the extra pass only to have it be intercepted in the zone and dumped out.

The scoring started eight and a half minutes into the first period for New Jersey when Timo Meier jammed one home between Andrei Vasilevskiy's legs. Less than two minutes later, Connor Brown scores a second goal for New Jersey on a great cross ice pass from Arseny Gritsyuk. Nico Hischier finished the scoring for New Jersey to make it 3-0 with 6:12 remaining in the first period.

Coming out of the locker, Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper, shuffled the lines and defensive pairings to help spark some life in the Bolts, and it seemed to work for a time.

The Lightning came to life offensively with a pair of "second stinters" getting the Lightning within a goal. First Yanni Gourde buried one from the high slot off of a Brayden Point pass. Ryan McDonagh brought the newly minted Benchmark International Arena fans to their feet with his own slap shot that got past Jacob Markstrom. Mac snuck into the play and had a beautiful one timer on a Brandon Hagel drop pass that pulled Tampa within one.

With momentum in Tampa's favor heading into the second intermission, New Jersey was able to make some in game adjustments and came out to deliver a counter punch which proved to be the final blow in this game. Jesper Bratt scored his second goal of the season with a short handed goal to push the score to 4-2 New Jersey with 15:12 remaining in regulation.

Connor Brown also scored his second of the 2025-26 season (and of the game) not even two minutes later when he beat Andrei Vasilevskiy from the right circle.

The fans on the "Lightning Shoot Twice" side were probably lulled to sleep by the first 56 minutes of play in their end. Darren Raddysh potted his first goal of the season with 3:43 to play in the the 3rd period to make the score 5-3.

Guentzel almost brought the score to 5-4 after a mad scramble in the crease with 3:17 left was eventually covered by Markstrom. Coming off the TV timeout, Vasy was pulled with the faceoff in New Jersey's defensive zone.

With 1:49 to play in regulation, Markstrom flicked a rolling puck up over the glass and gave Tampa another power play attempt for delay of game. The Bolts feverishly hit put shot attempts on net, but were unable to get anything past the Devils goaltender.

Tampa falls to 0-2-0 and will travel to Boston for a Columbus Day matinee on Monday afternoon.