Here are three reasons to like the Lightning’s new-look power play. Thursday’s moves were transformative, because the personnel and positional changes made it difficult to tell which was the top unit and which was the second. Point men Victor Hedman and Darren Raddysh switched units, with Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel matched with Raddysh.

The Tampa Bay Lightning edged the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 Thursday evening when Bolts forward Jake Guentzel scored the lone goal in sudden death. Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy turned away shots by Anaheim forward Mason McTavish and Ducks leading scorer Troy Terry in the shootout to allow Tampa Bay to win its 24th game of the season,

Jake Guentzel, who won a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 2017, had two assists to become the second player in Lightning history with at least 20 goals and 40 points in his first 40 games with the franchise. Guentzel signed a seven-year deal with the Lightning in the offseason.

It took everything they had to pull out two points, winning 4-3 as Andrei Vasilevskiy (34 saves) stopped all three Ducks shots in the shootout and Jake Guentzel scored what wound up being the winning goal in the first round.

Anaheim opened the scoring 6:03 into the game on a redirection by forward Troy Terry, but the Lightning tied the score eight minutes later on the power play. Hedman got the puck at the left point and fed forward Brandon Hagel in the right corner, where the latter passed the puck to Anthony Cirelli at the back post for a tap-in and a tie game.

This was a high-shot volume, high-chance game that featured terrific goaltending from Andrei Vasilevskiy and Lukas Dostal. The teams each scored three goals through 60 minutes but easily could have exceeded that total. In the end, the Lightning netted the only goal in the shootout to secure a crucial second point in the standings.

The Anaheim Ducks and Tampa Bay Lightning faced off for the second time in two weeks last night when they battled for 65 minutes plus a shootout at Amalie Arena in Tampa.

Ovechkin & Co. are back on top according to our voters. And at the midway point of the season, we identify the best fantasy player for all 32 clubs.

THROUGH GAMES OF FRIDAY, JAN. 17, 2025