Lightning Score 3 in 3rd to Down Flyers

By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 

It took 12 seconds for everything to turn against the Flyers.

The Lightning tied the game with just over 6:30 to play and took the lead 12 seconds later. Another late goal for Tampa sealed things for good.

The Flyers turned in an admirable effort, but fell short in a 4-2 loss to the Lightning on Wednesday night at Amalie Arena.

The Lightning were the team with more jump from the start. They took it to the Flyers in the first period, outshooting them, 12-2. It took until the closing seconds for Tampa to finally get on the board.

On the third power play of the period for the Lightning, Victor Hedman's point shot beat Steve Mason with three seconds left in the period to give the Lightning the lead heading to the intermission.

The Flyers turned everything around in the second, outshooting the Lightning, 22-9, in the period. They also finally solved the brick wall in the Tampa net.

First, it was a simple shot by Dale Weise that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy to put the Flyers on the board.

In the final minute of the second, Ivan Provorov picked up his first NHL goal with a nice wrist shot that beat the Tampa netminder and put the Flyers in front.

For over 13 minutes of the third period, a tired Flyers team dealt with Tampa controlling the puck in the offensive zone, three Lightning power plays and tons of possession time in between for the opposition. The Lightning finally got the lucky bounce with 6:32 to play.

A shot off the endboards by Slater Koekkoek came out the other side and right to Alex Killorn who buried his chance to tie the game.

Off the ensuing face-off, the Flyers got mixed up in their own zone as the Lightning swarmed the net again. With the Flyers out of sorts, Brayden Point fed an open Ryan Callahan for the easy tap-in goal to put the Lightning in front 12 seconds later.

The Flyers got a late power play chance after that but couldn't capitalize. Looking to pull the goalie late, the Lightning came back on a rush and scored with Nikita Kucherov getting the tally.

Steve Mason made 24 saves in the loss while Vasilevskiy stopped 28 shots in the win, his second over the Flyers in four days.

Box Score

Scoring Summary

1st Period

• TB Victor Hedman (4) PP (Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point) 19:57

2nd Period

• PHI Dale Weise (2) (Chris VandeVelde, Ivan Provorov) 6:06
• PHI Ivan Provorov (1) (Matt Read, Mark Streit) 19:05

3rd Period

• TB Alex Killorn (8) (Slater Koekkoek, Vladislav Namestnikov) 13:28
• TB Ryan Callahan (2) (Point, Tyler Johnson) 13:40
• TB Nikita Kucherov (Valtteri Filppula) 18:45

Game Statistics