Nikita Kucherov's hat trick leads Lightning past Hurricanes

Nikita Kucherov scored a hat trick in the final nine minutes and the Tampa Bay Lightning posted a 4-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes in the season opener for both teams Friday night in Raleigh, N.C.

Brayden Point scored the first Tampa Bay goal, with Kucherov picking up an assist on the goal. Kucherov added two empty-net goals, including the last one with 16 seconds left.

The first two Lightning goals came on power plays.

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning, who responded quickly with the Hurricanes using an extra attacker with more than two minutes to play.

Jordan Staal opened the scoring with a goal for the Hurricanes, who had trouble generating sustained offense for large chunks of the game. Frederik Andersen stopped 19 shots in Carolina's nets.

Kucherov's goal-ahead goal came on a blast from the top of the right circle.

Andersen had stopped Anthony Cirelli's breakaway prior to the Carolina penalty that led to the power play.

Staal scored 14:32 into the game, with Carolina newcomer William Carrier notching his first point with an assist. Jordan Martinook's extended forechecking for the Hurricanes helped set up the scoring sequence.

The Lightning held a 9-6 edge on first-period shots, and they finally broke through in the second period. Point scored on a power-play wrister 2:33 into the period just 12 seconds into the extra-man advantage.

That came on the first of three second-period penalties called against the Hurricanes, who had to kill off another penalty in the third.

The game marked the debut for rookie winger Jackson Blake with the Hurricanes. He was the team's only rookie in the opening-night lineup.

The teams were supposed to meet in a rematch Saturday night in Tampa, but that game has been postponed because of ongoing recovery efforts in Florida related to Hurricane Milton. The home states of both of these teams have been dealing with hurricane recoveries in recent weeks.

--Field Level Media