Raw Charge
Summary
If you keep ripping shots at the net, they’ll eventually go in. Brayden Point has been creating chances all year and just missing. On Tuesday, he found the back of the net twice in the first period as the Tampa Bay Lightning built a 3-0 lead, and held on to defeat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2. The victory ran the Lightning’s winning streak at home to seven games, a franchise record to start the season. Anthony Cirelli and Ryan McDonagh had the other two goals while Nikita Kucherov picked up two more assists. The Lightning needed to come out and push a tired Red Wings team around in the first period. It took a little while (and a couple of power plays), but that is exactly what they did. After the two teams started pretty evenly, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made an outstanding blocker save on Alex DeBrincat after a deflected pass landed right at his stick, a power play eight minutes into the game turned the tide. A quick passing sequence put the puck on Brayden Point’s stick in the slot, and with no one tying him up, he was able to get a shot off. It wasn’t the greatest shot, in fact he scuffed it a bit, but it fooled John Gibson and slid under his pads to open the scoring. From there, the Lightning really picked up their tempo. They quickly drew another power play, and while they didn’t convert, they kept Detroit busy in the zone. Point would pick up his second as he skated onto a pass from Kucherov (who now has five points since making his trade request) in the slot and wristed one past Gibson. With the 2-0 lead, the Lightning didn’t let up as they kept piling up chances. Even the Conor Geekie line got in on the fun. Jeff Viel stick-handled around a couple of players and beat Gibson, but the crossbar kept the puck out of the net. Geekie followed up right after with a chance in front, but the Red Wings goalie was there to stop it. Whether it was the fatigue from playing the night before or a slightly-annoyed Lightning team hell-bent on playing defense, Detroit generated almost no offense after Point’s first goal. J.T. Compher had a shot on goal with 11:33 left, and a blocked shot with 5:08 left in the period. That’s it. That’s all. Tampa Bay outchanced them 21-3 and out-attempted them 37-6. It’s hard to find a more dominant period this season for the Lightning. There final shot seemed to tweak up Gibson, who took a long time to get ready to re-start the game in the final seconds. He gutted it out, but would not return for the second period as Daniil Tarasov took over to start the middle frame. Andrei Vasilevskiy did not have to make many saves through the first fourty minutes, but he made some key ones, none more so than the one he made on Lucas Raymond with just over a minute left in the middle frame. The Lightning were up 3-1 at that point and Raymond was all by himself in the slot when he teed up a one timer. Vasy closed the door and sticked it aside to maintain the two-goal lead. How did they get that lead? Well, it was technically a three-goal lead as Anthony Cirelli converted a feed from Gage Goncavles at the 8:41 mark. J.J. Moser set the play up with a feed down low, and with that pass picked up his first point of the season. After the goal, there was a bit of a lull in the Lightning’s play, and Raymond took advantage. J.T. Compher fed a puck from behind the net and Raymond shot it through traffic to beat Vasilevskiy up high. Detroit was able to generate a few more chances in the middle frame, how could they not, but for the most part it was a pretty solid effort for the Lightning. Protecting multi-goal leads has been a bit of a bugaboo of late, so to get the big save from Vasilevskiy late in the period (and to have Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s attempt at the very end of the period go wide) allowed the Bolts to head into the last frame with a two-goal lead. The Lightning might have been the better rested team, but Detroit finished stronger. A power play goal by J.T. Compher cut the lead to 3-2 with an agonizing 14:31 left to play in the period, but the Lightning managed to hang on. With back-to-back penalties by Max Crozier and Erik Cernak, they bent as far as a team can go without surrendering the lead (credit to Ryan McDonagh for a nice play to check a Red Wing on the far post to prevent a slam-dunk goal). Vasilevskiy also saved his best work for the final third of the game as he turned aside 12-of-13 shots in the final frame, including a couple during the 6-on-5 chaos at the end of the game. Detroit did a good job of pinning the Lightning in with Tarasov on the bench, and busting back to prevent chances when the Lightning did clear the puck. Brandon Hagel was staring at an empty net at one point only to have his pocket picked from behind. The veteran McDonagh finally eased the tension in the building when he curled a puck from almost 200 feet away into the empty net with just a second left on the clock. It was the power plays that really breathed life into Detroit’s attempted comeback as they posted nine attempts and four shots on net with the extra skater. At even strength, the game was fairly level, unfortunately they only played 11:08 at 5v5. Overall it was a solid win for the Bolts against a good, but tired team. The start was there, and the finish, while not great, was better than it was against Nashville. The Goals: Brayden Point (4) [Nikita Kucherov, Charle-Edouard D’Astous] Power Play, 1-0 Lightning Power play goal for Tampa Bay!Scored by Brayden Point with 12:06 left in the 1st. Assisted by Nikita Kucherov and Charle-Edouard D'Astous.TBL: 1 | DET: 0#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T00:31:34.256457Z Brayden Point (5) [Nikita Kucherov, Erik Cernak] 2-0 Lightning Tampa Bay goal!Scored by Brayden Point with 06:59 left in the 1st. Assisted by Nikita Kucherov and Erik Cernak.TBL: 2 | DET: 0#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T00:43:12.719356Z Anthony Cirelli (5) [Gage Goncalves, J.J. Moser] 3-0 Lightning Tampa Bay goal!Scored by Anthony Cirelli with 11:19 left in the 2nd. Assisted by Gage Goncalves and J.J. Moser.TBL: 3 | DET: 0#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T01:34:07.546297Z Lucas Raymond (6) [J.T. Compher] 3-1 Lightning Detroit goal!Scored by Lucas Raymond with 09:37 left in the 2nd. Assisted by J.T. Compher.TBL: 3 | DET: 1#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T01:43:19.571207Z J.T. Compher (2) [Andrew Copp, Justin Faulk] Power Play, 3-2 Lightning Power play goal for Detroit!Scored by J.T. Compher with 14:31 left in the 3rd. Assisted by Andrew Copp and Justin Faulk.TBL: 3 | DET: 2#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T02:22:23.574479Z Ryan McDonagh (1) [unassisted] Empty Net, 4-2 Lightning Empty net goal for Tampa Bay!Scored by Ryan McDonagh with 00:01 left in the 3rd.TBL: 4 | DET: 2#DETvsTBL #GoBolts #LGRW — NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T02:52:22.949933Z The Numbers: #NHL Game Score Impact Card for Tampa Bay Lightning on 2026-11-03:#GoBolts — HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards.com) 2026-11-04T02:57:23.836Z Box Score Time On Ice Natural Stat Trick