TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy said “the wait was well worth it” after it took a long video review to confirm a victory over Pittsburgh.
Vasilevskiy made an outstanding save as regulation ended after Victor Hedman scored a power-play goal with 56.8 seconds remaining to give the Lightning a 3-2 victory over the Penguins on Wednesday night.
Last year’s Vezina Trophy winner dove head-first into the crease and made a sweeping glove stop on Kris Letang’s shot.
“There was a big scramble,” Vasilevskiy said. “I just tried to cover the bottom of the net, seal the ice and he just shot into my glove. Kind of never give-up play. It works sometimes … not every time, though.”
Replays showed that part of Vasilevskiy’s glove was past the goal line but it wasn’t clear if the puck completely crossed over, too.
“It looks like it’s in his webbing and for a split second it looked like his webbing is over the line,” Penguins center Sidney Crosby said. “So maybe they can’t tell based on being in his glove.”
Hedman felt the longer the delay lasted, the better it was for the Lightning.
“I was confident the whole way,” Hedman said. “That was a big save.”
Hedman scored from just inside the blue line off Steven Stamkos’ pass from the left circle.
The Lightning went 1 for 4 on the power play, with two coming in the last five minutes of play. Pittsburgh failed to score on its one chance.
“Unfortunately you’ve got to kill all those (penalties),” Crosby said. “I don’t know if we deserved all those. It’s not like they dominated and had the puck that much more than we did. You think we have drew a few more.”
Alex Killorn and Cedric Paquette also scored, and Vasilevskiy made 37 saves.
Brandon Tanev and Jake Guentzel scored and Tristan Jarry stopped 45 shots for the Penguins. Crosby picked up an assist and moved past Norm Ullman into sole possession of 40th place on the NHL career points list with 1,230.
The injury-depleted Penguins are without forwards Evgeni Malkin, Alex Galchenyuk, Nick Bjugstad and Bryan Rust, and defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Zach Trotman. Malkin has 23 goals and 51 points in 38 games against Tampa Bay.
Paquette, who played for the first time this season after being sidelined by an upper-body injury, tied it at 2 on a deflection at 7:07 of the third.
Tanev skated out from behind the net and scored on a backhander at 5:06 of the second before Guentzel scored off a pass through the slot from Crosby to put Pittsburgh up 2-1 with 58.8 seconds left in the period.
Crosby has 34 assists and 53 points in 40 games against the Lightning.
Pittsburgh has 19 second-period goals in 11 games this season.
Killorn opened the scoring midway through the first by redirecting Nikita Kucherov’s shot.
NOTES: World War II Medal of Honor recipient, 96-year old Hershel “Woody” Williams, dropped a ceremonial puck. Forty-six of the 70 living recipients were at the game and are taking part in the Medal of Honor Society Convention in Tampa this week. “This is a remarkable, truly special occasion,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. … Tampa Bay owner Jeff Vinik is seeking an outdoor game in Tampa and Bettman said the league continues to study to see if it’s can be done logistically.
UP NEXT:
Penguins: Complete a three-game trip Saturday night at Dallas.
Lightning: Close out three-game homestand against Nashville on Saturday night.
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