TAMPA, Fla. _ Louis Domingue couldn't turn his head well, but he wasn't going to let that keep him from his first start in 19 days.
The Lightning goalie tweaked his neck playing basketball, warming up before the game, and still couldn't turn his head after the game. But Domingue stopped 38 shots out of 40 as the Lightning beat the Hurricanes, 4-2, on Tuesday.
"Fortunately, I only had to turn (my head) twice tonight," he said referring to digging the puck out of his own net after a goal.
Those two goals weren't ones any goalie could do much with. Micheal Ferland made a nice stick move to score in the first period and then Martin Necas scored on a 3-on-1.
"That was alarming, that he kinked his neck," coach Jon Cooper said. "Vasy (Andrei Vasilevskiy) was ready to go just in case, but he said he was ready and he went in, and good thing because he played really well."
Tyler Johnson scored a hat trick, his first three goals of the season, while Mathieu Joseph recorded his first NHL point.
The Hurricanes struck first, but the Lightning responded quickly and Carolina and Tampa were tied 1-1 at the end of the first period.
Ferland put the Canes on the board after beating Domingue, seizing upon a turnover by Victor Hedman at 10:25.
The Bolts were faced with the tough task of killing a penalty shortly after that first goal, but did they in the best way possible with a short-handed goal. Joseph got past Justin Williams and fed a nice pass over to Johnson, who roofed it over Petr Mrazek.
Johnson added his second of the game 6:07 into the second to give the Lightning their first lead of the game. He sped between a couple of Hurricanes, then showed off a nice wrister at close range.
But the Hurricanes took advantage of the Bolts' bad line change and a three-on-one to tie it up at 12:48. Martin Necas got a shot past Domingue as he went to the ice, for the 19-year-old's first NHL goal.
Yanni Gourde came up with a power-play goal (his second in the first four games) to put Tampa back on top at 7:19. Ondrej Palat made a nice play to set up the goal, and Trevor van Riemsdyk screened his own goalie a bit.
Johnson finished up his hat trick with an empty netter about 30 seconds after Rod Brind'Amour pulled Mrazek. The Canes had a couple of looks, but too much traffic in front of the net and blocked their own shots, then Johnson picked up the puck and finished it off with 1:56 to play.
