Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli recorded his second career hat trick, Zemgus Girgensons notched his 100th goal and the host Lightning tallied five unanswered times to reach 100 points in a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.
Trailing 2-1 to open the second period, the Lightning (47-22-6, 100 points) got Cirelli’s short-handed goal, Brayden Point’s game-winner and Girgensons’ century milestone to go to 8-2-2 in the past 12 matches and win the season-series 2-1-0 over Pittsburgh (38-22-16, 92 points).
Buffalo also has 100 points atop the Atlantic Division, but the Lightning have a game in hand on the Sabres.
Cirelli tallied an empty-net goal in the third period for his first hat trick since 2020, while Nikita Kucherov had a goal in the frame and added two assists. Jake Guentzel and Gage Goncalves had two assists apiece. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 21 saves.
Brandon Hagel, the club’s third-leading goal scorer with 35, missed the match and is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury.
Pittsburgh’s Egor Chinakhov scored twice, including one in the final seconds, and Rickard Rakell tallied for the seventh time in six games. Kris Letang chipped in two assists, as did Samuel Girard for his first multipoint game since being acquired by the Penguins on Feb. 24. Stuart Skinner stopped 27 shots.
After Pittsburgh rookie Ben Kindel turned over the puck in the defensive end in the first period, Skinner turned aside Goncalves’ shot, but Cirelli potted the rebound at 5:06 for his 21st goal.
Less than two minutes later, the Penguins found the equalizer when Girard drove counterclockwise around Vasilevskiy and dumped a pass to the side where Rakell hit the net for the 21st time.
Chinakhov roared by the Lightning defense on the right side and flipped a backhander at 16:10 past Vasilevskiy, who overcommitted outside the crease on the near post. That marker gave the visitors their first lead as the winger added to his career-high with his 19th.
The Penguins set up on the power play after winning a second-period faceoff, but Cirelli stole a pass and finished off a breakaway with a neat forehand-backhand shot to knot it 11 seconds into the period.
Point put the Atlantic Division squad back on top by finding a bouncing puck near Skinner and popping in his 18th marker at 14:08. Girgensons reached the century mark for the match’s first two-goal lead with 55 seconds left in the frame.
