Hagel’s Historic Night Leads Lightning to Avalanche Safety – Hockey Writers – NHL News

The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Colorado Avalanche, 8-2, to get a solid bounceback on home ice. Forward Brandon Hagel led the way on a historic night, tallying five assists. With that total, he matched the franchise record for assists in a game.

He is the fourth player to reach the mark, matching Mark Recchi (0-5 assists—5 points on March 1, 2009), Martin St. Louis (0-5—5 on Nov. 18, 2010) and Darren Raddysh (0 -5—5 on March 9, 2024). Hagel is the fourth fastest player to reach five assists in a game, doing so in 29 minutes and 38 seconds of game time. He sits behind Wayne Gretzky (23:58 on March 4, 1988) and Mario Lemieux twice (25:02 on Nov. 1, 1995, and 26:06 on Feb. 23, 1989).

Hagel also tied the NHL record with four assists in the first half.

Lightning Gets Earlier And More Often At First Time

The Lightning opened the scoring 5:41 into the game with an unassisted goal by defenseman Nick Perbix. Just two minutes into the Lightning’s power play, Jake Guentzel, crossing the left circle, took a pass from Hagel and tucked it into the back of the net to make it 2-0.

The Avalanche broke the deadlock when Ivan Ivan grabbed a rebound that saved goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy from the right and went past him to make it 2-1. This is the closest game it could be all night.

Nikita Kucherov answered a minute later to make it 3-1, and the Lightning went ahead to end the period. Luke Glendening picked up a shorthanded goal – his first goal of the season – to make it 4-1. Anthony Cirelli scored in the final seconds of the period to give the Lightning a 5-1 lead after 20. Hagel assisted on the final three goals of the season to reach the all-time mark of four assists.

With that goal, Cirelli has scored in his sixth game in a row. He is the first player to score in six consecutive games this season, surpassing Alex Ovechkin and Sam Reinhart (twice), who hit five in a row.

Cirelli has had a strong start to this season compared to last. In his first 20 games, he had nine goals and 13 assists for 22 points with seven high-scoring games. Compare that to last season when he had just two goals and six assists for eight points in 20 games with one multi-point game.

2 quiet moments

After a period with six goals combined, it will be quiet if the rest of the game has a normal scoring rate. Brayden Point scored the lone goal in the second half, assisted by Hagel and Kucherov for his fifth assist. The score will remain 6-1 going into the break.

Sixty-eight seconds into the third period, Ivan scored an unassisted goal for his second goal of the game, making it 6-2. Nyazi answered again. Guentzel scored his second goal of the game and Mikey Eyssimot picked up his first goal of the season to cap off his night’s scoring.

Vasilevskiy saved 23-of-25 shots on the night (.920 save percentage). The defense also had a solid night in front of their goalie with 17 blocked shots.

The Lightning also went 2-for-2 on the power play. The special teams have started to match them in the last six games. They scored six of 16 power play points in that span.

The Lightning are back on Wednesday night when they host the Washington Capitals. The Avalanche return to action on Wednesday when they host the Vegas Golden Knights.

Three Stars of the Game:

1. Brandon Hagel (0-5–5)
2. Nikita Kucherov (1-2-3)
3. Mikey Eyssimot (1-0–1)