Stars Shine Bright

By Mike Rifkin

It’s the season to be thankful, and one of the things the Tampa Bay Lightning were thankful for on Friday was the return of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. Vasilevskiy missed the first 20 games of the season with back surgery, and the Lightning were able to hold their own with a record of 9-6-5. Vasilevskiy returned on Friday night in a showdown in Carolina. 

The Lightning beat the Carolina Hurricanes 8-2 on Friday night. Brayden Point had a Hat Trick and five points, Nikita Kucherov had two goals and six points, Brandon Hagel had a goal and two assists, and Steven Stamkos had a goal and an assist. The Lightning scored four goals on the power play on five opportunities. Oh yeah, back to Vasilevskiy, he returned to the lineup and made 22 saves on 24 Hurricane shots. 

I said on the Breakaway Bandits podcast (https://open.spotify.com/show/4c0N0MThfHU0Wbt8uEvcPZ) that teams would have to put the Lightning away before Vasilevskiy’s return. That hasn’t happened; the Lightning sit in third place in the Atlantic Division. This is a Lightning team that was eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and it might be the best thing that happened to them because they got an entire offseason to recover after three consecutive deep runs in the playoffs. If the Lightning stays healthy, they have the stars to make another deep run in the playoffs, but on Friday night, the most important thing was they got the best goalie in hockey back, but their other stars stepped up.