Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, the best goalie in the world, added something to his repertoire Tuesday — the ability to play on one skate blade.
Not only was Vasilevskiy able to keep the Carolina Hurricanes from scoring after having a blade dislodged, he did it while the Canes had a two-man advantage on a power play for 95 seconds.
Vasilevskiy’s gutsy stint was a highlight for the Lightning but not the difference in an exciting game at Amalie Arena that went to overtime before Martin Necas beat Vasilevskiy and won it for the Canes, 2-1.
The Canes believed they had won, and celebrated, when defenseman Brady Skjei scored at 1:39 of overtime. But a review of the scoring play showed Vincent Trocheck offside — no goal. The two teams played on and Necas beat Vasilevskiy with a shot from the left circle at 3:26.
Steven Stamkos gave the Lightning the lead in the second period after the penalty killers — and the goalie they call the “Big Cat” — killed off the 5 on 3. Tampa Bay took the 1-0 lead into the third, but the Canes finally broke through on the power play for a tying goal from Teuvo Teravainen with 10:04 left in regulation.
Teravainen’s third of the season came on perfectly executed power-play passing — Andrei Svechnikov to Vincent Trocheck at the goal line, and Trocheck whipping a pass across the crease to Teravainen.
The Canes went to Tampa off a tasteless 5-2 road loss to the Florida Panthers, Carolina’s first of the season after nine straight wins. Carolina had four first-period penalties, the Panthers scored three times on the power play and added another goal for a 4-0 lead and that was that — the Canes couldn’t catch up.
“We know we didn’t play up to Carolina Hurricanes standards,’ Canes forward Steven Lorentz said after Tuesday’s morning skate. “That wasn’t good enough. And even a couple of games before that we kind of got a little bit off track even though we got the two points.
“I think it was a big wake-up game (against) Florida. After that first period we realized we can’t get away with cheating some nights. We’ve got to bring our game every single night, night after night and shift after shift.”
The Canes brought their game Tuesday to face the 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup champion. They limited the Lightning to three shots in the first period. They sharply killed off penalties. The pace of play was crisp and the Canes had their scoring chances.
In the second period, Tampa Bay’s Jan Rutta was called for delay of game after lifting a puck over the glass. Then, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was called for cross-checking Trocheck, giving the Canes a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:35 in a scoreless game.
Teravainen got off a shot that knocked off Vasilevskiy’s skate blade, leaving the goalie unable to stand. But the Canes were too cute with the puck, hunting a good shop and perhaps trying to keep from getting a whistle that would all Vasilevskiy the time to get repairs.
Whatever, the Lightning killed off the penalties and the momentum shifted to Tampa Bay. Mathieu Joseph made a good play in the corner in the Carolina zone and found Stamkos open to Frederik Andersen’s right for his seventh of the season nine minutes into the second.
Andersen was again the Canes starting goalie, as he has been in 10 of the games this season. With goalie Antti Raanta now injured and his return indefinite, his workload will continue to be heavy.
Andersen didn’t lose a skate blade but made some big stops of his own to keep it a one-goal game into the third.
Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev was serving the second game of a two-game suspension handed down by the NHL. Defenseman Erik Cernak was injured Tuesday and did not play after the first period.
