Lightning drop another game at home, losing to Kings

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Dec 18, 2025

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Lightning were without two of their top three scorers on Thursday night against the Kings. And at this point, a team that’s been riddled by injuries over the season’s first 10 weeks is just hoping to get to the holiday break without any more.

The Lightning’s revolving-door roster got two big pieces back Thursday — goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy and defenseman Ryan McDonagh — but the indefinite absence of left wing Brandon Hagel, who leads the team with 18 goals, and an 11th-hour scratch of leading scorer Nikita Kucherov still left them not close to whole.

Then, Lightning center Anthony Cirelli left after taking an elbow to the head from Kings forward Kevin Fiala in the third period, an injury that served as a bigger gut punch following their 2-1 loss.

Still, this is no time for the Lightning to lag. They entered the night having won just twice in their previous eight games, and on Thursday they found themselves in another tight contest at Benchmark International Arena.

The late scratch of Kucherov forced the Lightning to open the game shorthanded with just 11 forwards. For the first time in weeks, they didn’t have any extra forwards after making space to activate Vasilevskiy and McDonagh from injured reserve.

They couldn’t hold an early lead — Oliver Bjorkstrand’s power-play goal opened the scoring with 7:06 left in the first period — allowing two Los Angeles goals in a second period that saw the Kings record just nine shots on goal.

Adrian Kempe scored both Los Angeles goals, including a go-ahead score off a Pontus Holmberg offensive-zone turnover. Holmberg’s errant pass gave Kempe a breakaway, fighting off McDonagh’s stick-check and tucking the puck past Vasilevskiy, who had come out of the crease trying to make a play.

Bjorkstrand scored his third goal in his last four games, second on the power play, when he won the puck in the neutral zone, led a rush into the offensive zone, passed off to Jake Guentzel and then went toward the front of the net. He took a pass from Anthony Cirelli and rebounded his own shot in front, finding the five-hole through Kings goaltender Anton Forsberg.

The Lightning had their chances in the third period. Holmberg put a spin move on Kings defenseman Brian Dumoulin and took a backhand shot that went off Forsberg’s pad right to Zemgus Girgensons. Girgensons’ rebound attempt got past Forberg, but the goaltender was able to reach back and swat the puck behind him, preventing it from crossing the goal line.

Cirelli was circling back around the left circle in the offensive zone when he was blindsided by Fiala’s hit. He fell to the ice for several moments before skating off hunched over and didn’t return.

The Lightning had a 6-on-4 advantage with 65 seconds left after Corey Perry was whistled for holding but couldn’t score the tying goal.

Vasilevskiy stopped 18 of 20 shots in his first game since Dec. 2.