Filppula caps rally as Lightning edge Devils
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning have not enjoyed their starts at the beginning of the season. But they sure enjoy the endings.
Tampa Bay overcame an early two-goal deficit before rallying for victory for the second straight game, defeating the New Jersey Devils 3-2 at Amalie Arena on Saturday.
Valterri Filppula scored the go-ahead goal at the 5:43 mark of the third period to complete the comeback as the Lightning opened the season with two consecutive victories. Steven Stamkos scored his first of the season, Alex Killorn notched his second in as many games while goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 32 saves in his first start of the campaign.
Travis Zajac and Kyle Palmieri each scored for New Jersey. Cory Schneider stopped 31 shots as the Devils finished a two-game winless swing through Florida to start the season.
Filppula notched the winner after getting a deflection from the slot on a Jason Garrison shot from the center point. Rookie Brayden Point recorded his first career assist on the play.
New Jersey jumped out to a quick lead in the opening minute, pressuring the Lightning in the offensive zone. As Alex Killorn tried to clear the zone with a bank pass off the side boards, the puck went directly to John Moore at the left point before he blasted a shot that deflected off Palmieri and over goaltender Vasilevskiy 52 seconds into the game.
New Jersey doubled the lead before the next media timeout, taking advantage of a Tampa Bay turnover as P.A. Parenteau collected a bouncing puck at the Lightning blue line. Parenteau hit the right circle and spun around to deliver a perfect spinning backhand pass on to the stick of Travis Zajac, whose one-timer deflected off the stick of Tampa Bay's Anton Stralman and under Vasilevskiy at 4:26.
But the Lightning, as they did in their come-from-behind victory on Thursday, started to push the pace in the second period. The rally started when Jonathan Drouin picked a pocket in the defensive zone, weaved his way up the middle of the ice before dishing off to Ondrej Palat near the left boards. Palat patiently waited for a seam to open up before finding a cutting Stamkos for a backdoor tap-in at 7:53 of the second period.
Killorn tied the game just over two minutes later, finding a loose puck in the slot after Nikita Kucherov's shot was blocked, beating Schneider at 10:07.
New Jersey appeared to take the lead on a power play goal by Andy Greene at 15:33. Tampa Bay challenged the play for offside, which negated the goal and kept the game tied heading into the third period.
NOTES: Lightning D Braydon Coburn appeared in his 700th career NHL game. ... Newly acquired New Jersey RW P.A. Parenteau, who was claimed off waivers from the New York Islanders two days prior to the start of the season, was bumped up to the top line and worked on the team's second power play unit. He did not play on either unit in the Devils' season-opening overtime loss at Florida. New Jersey failed to register a shot on goal in the two power-play chances in its first game. ... Tampa Bay scratched D Slater Koekkoek for the second consecutive game. ... New Jersey scratched D Steven Santini, LW Reid Boucher and C Jacob Josefson. ... Tampa Bay C Brian Boyle and New Jersey G Cory Schneider were teammates at Boston College. ... Lightning RW J.T. Brown appeared in his 200th career game