Tampa Bay’s Ilya Mikheyev had a goal and an assist as the Lightning won for the second straight time on their three-game homestand, handling the winless Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 on Monday night.
With the Lightning leading 2-1 and the Flyers pushing for the tying goal, Mikheyev, who played the past two seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, skated behind the Philadelphia goal and backhanded in his first tally with his new club with three minutes left.
Brandon Hagel added an empty-net goal for the final margin with seven seconds left.
Pontus Holmberg (assist) and Brayden Point netted their first goals this season, while Nikita Kucherov had two helpers. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 13 saves.
Opening a three-game road trip, Philadelphia got a goal from Tyson Foerster and 32 saves from Dan Vladar but remained without a win in four matches (0-2-2).
Owen Tippett’s tripping penalty created the first power play, but Tampa Bay produced just one shot. Trevor Zegras’ high-sticking penalty on Kucherov at 12:06 started another power play, but the Lightning again failed to hit the net to leave them 0-for-12 with a man up this season.
They finally scored when Point won a faceoff over Zegras and soon tipped in John Carlson’s long shot at 16:05. The Lightning had all the momentum as they controlled the period’s remainder and outshot the Flyers 10-3.
Just 17 seconds into the second, Tampa Bay caught the visitors with an odd-man rush, and Mikheyev carried in as the center and slid a pass to Holmberg for the Swedish right winger’s goal and a 2-0 lead.
Foerster’s deep shot from near the blue line struck Lightning defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous at the edge of the crease as he battled with Porter Martone. The carom tumbled in at 7:22 to slice the lead in half.
Max Crozier appeared to make it 3-1 for the home side by smashing in a long shot at 2:58 of the third, but the tally was waved off because of goalie interference by Hagel into Vladar.
Hagel went off for elbowing Martone at 13:33, but the Lightning killed it off before the two late tallies locked down the win.
