Lightning plays one of its best games in beating Ottawa

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The Triplets were back together.

Goaltender Ben Bishop was excellent.

And Nikita Kucherov scored two goals.

For one night, at least, the Tampa Bay Lightning played the way they did a year ago, knocking off an Ottawa team that is ahead of them in the standings. The Lightning beat Ottawa 4-1, blowing open a one-goal lead in the third period.

The Lightning has struggled to score for most of the season, but for a night, they were able to find the net. Kucherov scored ninth and 10th goals of the year, and Valtteri Filippula scored on a rebound off the stick of J.T. Brown. Brown scored an empty-netter a.m.

Bishop stopped 30 of 31 shots, giving up nothing until his team had a 3-0 lead.

The Lighting plays the Caps at home on Saturday.

Gary Shelton is one of the most recognized and honored sportswriters in the history of the state. He has won the APSE's national columnist of the year twice and finished in the top 10 eight times. He was named the Florida Sportswriter of the Year six times. Gary joined SaintPetersBlog in the spring, helping to bring a sports presence to the website. Over his time in sports writing, Gary has covered 29 Super Bowls, 10 Olympics, Final Fours, Masters, Wimbledons and college national championships. He was there when the Bucs won a Super Bowl, when the Lightning won a Stanley Cup and when the Rays went to a World Series. He has seen Florida, FSU and Miami all win national championships, and he covered Bear Bryant, Bobby Bowden and Don Shula along the way. He and his wife Janet have four children: Eric, Kevin, K.C. and Tori. To contact, visit [email protected].