TAMPA, Fla. _ Even when the Lightning have a rare off night and seems as if it might not walk away with any points, Tampa Bay finds a way.
All it needed was about five minutes and two power plays.
Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat both scored off the power play within five minutes of each other late in the third period to lift the Lightning to a 3-1 victory over Carolina on Thursday at Amalie Arena. Point also scored an empty-net goal.
Thanks to the late surge, Tampa Bay becomes the first team in the NHL to reach 70 points this season with the victory.
Through two and a half periods, it was one of those nights that many NHL teams occasionally have not named the Lightning. The Lightning needed some puck luck, and it didn't get it for the first two periods. Tampa Bay struggled to get anything going in the offensive zone, mustering only three shots in the first period. The Lightning at one point went 16 minutes between shots in the opening frame.
Carolina did much better in the shot department in the first but no better than the Lightning at scoring goals. Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made sure of that with 12 saves on 12 shots faced.
He also denied the shot that Dougie Hamilton fired at him point-blank early in the second period, but he couldn't slide over in time to stop Justin Williams. He fired the puck past Vasilevskiy to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead with 15:26 left in the second period.
The shots came for the Lightning in the second, too. They quadrupled their shot total in the second frame. But the theme of things not going right offensively continued for the Lightning in the second period.
Steven Stamkos couldn't fire home a shot that he often hits from the left circle. Adam Erne couldn't score on grinder goals he has at times shown an ability to score. Even Tyler Johnson, who traditionally scores with ease against the Hurricanes, couldn't capitalize on opportunities.
Nothing epitomized things going wrong for the Lightning more than what transpired about halfway through the period as Brayden Point broke away.
Mathieu Joseph rifled the puck to Point, who sped down the ice and scored off his own rebound. The goal tied the game at 1-1.
Or so they thought.
Petr Mrazek's didn't stop Point's score. Johnson's skate did, even though his skate was nowhere near the net. His skate remained on the ice before the puck crossed into the zone, nullifying Point's goal upon review.
Fans boos rattled Amalie Arena for several minutes after the official shared the news with the crowd. Even the first people displayed on the kiss cam during the break decided to boo.
There wasn't a review the next time the Lightning put the puck in the Carolina net. This time, it counted when Palat tied the game at 1 on the power play with 8:45 left in regulation as the puck trickled through the defender's legs after Palat tapped it with his stick.
Another power-play opportunity about five minutes later led to Point's game-winning goal, which he scored off a one-timer from Nikita Kucherov with 3:15 left in regulation. It's Point's 12th power play goal of the season.
Point added an empty-net goal with 25.7 seconds left.
