Raw Charge
Summary
After the first twenty minutes of play, it had all of the makings of one of those games. You know, one of those games where the Tampa Bay Lightning outplay their opponents for the vast majority of the game yet somehow end up on the losing end of the goal totals when time expires. Through the first 25 minutes of action the Lightning had controlled much of the play, yet it was the Vancouver Canucks had the 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Linus Karlsson and Elias Pettersson (the forward). Undeterred by the unfairness visited upon them to that point, the Lightning rallied with four straight goals, including two by Nikita Kucherov, to pick up the 4-2 victory and run their home record on the young season to 5-0. In net for the matinee contest, Dennis Hildeby turned aside 12-of-14 shots to pick up his second victory of the season. After facing seven shots in the first period, Hildeby faced just seven the rest of the game. On the other side, Kevin Lankinen returned to the crease after a couple of games off and had 71 shots launched in his direction with 35 of them making them on net. It’s the third straight game Vancouver has surrendered at least 30 shots on net as they finish off their six-game road trip without a victory. Kucherov got the Bolts on the board less than two minutes after Pettersson’s goal made it 2-0. It came on, of all things, the power play. He followed up his own shot and snapped it home for his second goal of the season. Five minutes later he ripped home a quick wrist shot off of a clean Brayden Point face-off win with Gage Goncalves setting the screen in front of Lankinen. Jake Guentzel made it 3-2 Lightning early in the third as he flung a shot from just inside the blueline that tipped off of a Canucks’ stick and past Lankinen’s glove. Holmberg finished off the scoring as he scooted in on a clean Vancouver face-off win to steal the puck and cut to the front of the net before whacking home the puck. We’re not saying they were scheming to lose the face-off, but Holmberg was ready. The Lightning had a pretty good night in the face-off dot, winning 62% of the draws. Anthony Cirelli had a particularly good night on draws, winning 12-of-17. Among other notable stats, Ryan McDonagh blocked three shots, bringing his career total to 2098. In doing so, he passed Alex Petriangelo for the fourth-most blocked shots in NHL history. The only players that have gotten in the way of shots more are Mark Giordano (2,164), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (2,184), and Mac’s teammate John Carlson (2,213). The Lightning finished off their short home stand 2-0, and improved their record to 6-2-0 to start the season. They’ll head out West for three games, including their first back-to-back of the season. The Goals Linus Karlsson (2) [Paul Cotter, Filip Chytil] 1-0 Canucks Eiias Pettersson (3) [Juri Lekkermaki, Brock Boeser] Power Play. 2-0 Canucks Nikita Kucherov (2) [Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel] Power Play, 2-1 Canucks Nikita Kucherov (3) [Brayden Point] 2-2 Jake Guentzel (4) [Charle-Edouard D’Astous, Brayden Point] 3-2 Lightning Pontus Holmberg {2} [Unassisted] 4-2 Lightning The Numbers Box Score Time on Ice – Lightning Natural Stat Trick #NHL Game Score Impact Card for Tampa Bay Lightning on 2026-10-17:#GoBolts — HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards.com) 2026-10-17T22:46:42.419Z