Pittsburgh’s Jason Zucker scored twice, including the game-winner 2:13 into overtime, and the Penguins swept the three-game season series against the host Tampa Bay Lightning with a 5-4 win on Thursday night.
Zucker one-timed a cross-ice pass from Marcus Pettersson and beat goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (27 saves) inside the near post to give the Penguins their fourth straight victory.
Jeff Petry scored twice, and Drew O’Connor also tallied. Pettersson and Jeff Carter had two assists each. Tristan Jarry (19-7-5) allowed four goals on 31 shots.
After being acquired from the Nashville Predators late Wednesday night, right wing Mikael Granlund made his Pittsburgh debut on the third line and skated 16:16. He was plus-1.
Pittsburgh, which will play a season-high 15 games in March, opened the month with its third straight win in Tampa and swept the Lightning for the first time since the 2016-17 season.
Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos each had a goal and an assist, and Ross Colton and Victor Hedman scored. Mikhail Sergachev had two assists. Nikita Kucherov had a helper to extend his home point streak to a club-record 21 games.
The Lightning are 2-3-3 in their past eight games and have lost three straight for the first time.
Tampa Bay took a 1-0 lead at 5:39 in fluky fashion. Tanner Jeannot’s shot from the slot struck a pair of Penguins — O’Connor’s stick then Kris Letang squarely in the face — before caroming in off Colton for his 14th goal.
With a good amount of blood on the ice, Letang had to be helped off by the medical staff and headed straight to the dressing room, leaving Pittsburgh with just five defensemen. However, he returned late in the second period.
In the second, Hedman’s turnover to Sidney Crosby on an outlet pass led to the captain finding Petry to tie the match at 6:06. The defenseman beat Vasilevskiy again 25 seconds later for a 2-1 lead, lifting a sharp-angle shot for his fifth tally.
But on his team’s first power play, Point tied it by netting a goal at 9:39. It was his team-leading 38th and was the sixth straight game he scored.
However, a flipped stretch pass by Pettersson sprung Zucker on a break for his 18th at 15:06, and Letang returned on the next shift.
In the third frame, Stamkos knotted it for a third time before O’Connor and Hedman exchanged tallies to force overtime.
–Field Level Media
