At this point, perhaps Andrej Vasilevsky should buy a lottery ticket.
The Tampa Bay Lighting’s kid goaltender had quite the week. He became a father for the first time, he was promoted to the major league team and, Saturday night against Minnesota, he took his first shootout victory as the the Bolts beat Minnesota 3-2.
Vasilevskiy forced Charlie Coyle to his left, and Coyle hit the goalpost to provide the Lightning with the victory.
Ryan Callahan had scored the Lightning goal going forehand-backhand-forehand to score on his shootout goal.
Tampa Bay played one of its crisper games, getting goals from Valtteri Filppula and Nikita Kucherov. But both times, the Wild tied the game. With 7:38 to play, Minnesota had a goal by Ryan Suter disallowed because of goaltender interference. But with 2:38 to play, Jason Spurgeon score tied the game and forced it to overtime.
Vasilevskiy stopped 30 shots, half of them in the third period. He stopped two in overtime and all three shootout goals.