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Late goal means it wasn’t all bad luck for Lightning vs. Red Wings

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Nikita Kucherov scored two goals, including the game-winner with less than two minutes left, to give the Lightning a 4-3 win over the Red Wings in Detroit.

It was a turbulent trip, but the Tampa Bay Lightning ultimately beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 on Tuesday.

The question is: will Steven Stamkos’ injury be serious enough that the night will be deemed a net loss?

MORE: Video of Stamkos injury

That’s an unsettling question for the Bolts to consider, but in the mean time, they got a “gutsy win,” as Keith Jones said after the game. There’s some narrative symmetry to Stamkos scoring a goal to push himself closer to the league’s scoring leaders, only to get hurt ... and then Nikita Kucherov rose himself with a huge, late goal.

After starting the scoring on Tuesday, Kucherov generated his second goal of the night (and eighth of 2016-17) to win the game with a little more than a minute remaining in the third period.

You can forgive the Red Wings for being a little thunderstruck by that 4-3 tally.

The Red Wings fought back hard from a 3-1 deficit to tie things up and also seemed to come a post or two away from getting a lead against Ben Bishop. The Lighning survived, however, and ultimately rode that late Kucherov goal to a regulation win.

Tampa Bay now has wins in the first two games of a five-game road trip, a great start for a span that also rounds out to eight road games in 10 appearances stretching back to Monday.

To shake off injuries and manage wins on back-to-back nights? Yeah, that’s some gutsy stuff. Especially considering how nasty this game got, including the Steve Ott hit on Cedric Paquette and Brayden Coburn shaking off an injury scare of his own.

Now they just need to cross their fingers to avoid the gut-punch that would come from a bad update regarding Stamkos.