But late in the period, Tampa struck back. Huberdeau couldn’t control the puck inside the Tampa blueline and Nikita Kucherov yoinked it away from him and raced off for a breakaway chance. He beat Dan Vladar on that breakaway to tie the game at 1-1.

First period shots were 9-9. Via Natural Stat Trick, five-on-five scoring chances were 15-6 Lightning (high-danger chances were 3-2 Lightning).

A lot happened in the second period. A few minutes into the period, Pospisil blocked a Rasmus Andersson point shot with his knee, going down in a heap and leaving the game for awhile.

A little after Pospisil left the game, Tampa scored off the rush on a nice little sequence. They carried the puck into the zone, dropped the puck to Jake Guentzel, and he fired a shot from the top of the slot that beat Vladar glove-side to give the visitors a 2-1 lead.

Shortly after the Flames went down 2-1 – 30 seconds later – Jake Bean was called for holding. On the resulting Tampa power play, Brayden Point blasted a shot from the slot that beat Vladar and gave the Lightning a 3-1 lead.

A little after that , Nazem Kadri was nabbed for a puck-over-glass delay-of-game minor. At the tail end of that power play, Cirelli jammed in a rebound around the blue paint after Vladar made the initial stop. That gave the Lightning their second power play goal of the period and a 4-1 lead.

At that point, Pospisil returned to the Flames bench and they seemed to get their legs back.

The Flames answered back with a weird, pretty goal. Huberdeau attempted to spring Kadri into the Tampa zone with a bank pass through the neutral zone. Tampa defender J.J. Moser blew a tire and laid out trying to get his stick on the pass. Kadri leapt over Moser’s sprawled out body, nearly fell over himself and spun upon landing, then fired the puck past Vasilevskiy from the slot to cut the Tampa lead to 4-2.

And a little later, Connor Zary entered the Tampa zone, accepted a pass from Blake Coleman, and sniped a shot past Vasilevskiy’s glove (picking the top corner) to cut the Tampa lead down to 4-3.

Second period shots were 8-7 Lightning. Five-on-five scoring chances were 10-5 Lightning (high-danger chances were 4-3 Lightning).

The Lightning pulled away in the third period.

Early in the period, the Flames couldn’t clear the zone and turned it over on attempted zone exits twice. Cirelli’s shot hit a body out front, but Brandon Hagel fired the puck past Vladar to make it 5-3.

With Zary in the box for interference, Kucherov made a great play on the power play and sent Guentzel in all alone. He went top corner on Vladar to make it 6-3.

A little later, the Flames attackers were all caught up ice and left Kevin Bahl all along against Hagel and Conor Geekie. Geekie buried Hagel’s feed to make it 7-3.

As the game wound down, Daniil Miromanov dropped his stick and went back to get it. That left Guentzel unattended for a redirect of a feed from Point to make it 8-3.

And that was how it ended.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were way, way too leaky in their own zone and their puck management was dreadful. They had a few flashes of decent play, but they were way too permissive defensively.

Red Warrior

Let’s give it to Huberdeau by default. He had a goal and a really nice play on the Kadri goal.

Turning point

Tampa Bay scored two goals on two shots, 90 seconds apart, in the second period and grabbed hold of this game.

This and that

Ryan Lomberg returned to action after being absent from the road trip due to the birth of his third child. With his return, Jakob Pelletier was scratched.

Huberdeau’s point streak hit six games. Zary’s point streak hit four games.

This is the first time the Flames have allowed eight goals since Mar. 20, 2023 against Los Angeles. It’s the first time it’s happened at home since Feb. 15, 2020 against Chicago.

Up next

The Flames (14-11-5) are back in action on Saturday when the host the Florida Panthers.