The Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the New Jersey Devils 5-4 in a shootout at the Tampa Bay Times Forum Friday night.

"Wow. How about that?" - Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper

Another sellout crowd was on hand to witness a pair of unlikely comebacks from two-goal deficits in tonight's win. Unlikely, in that being down by two goals when facing Martin Brodeur is like being down by three or four against most other goalies.

"That's just what a Cooper team does. We've got a lot of character, we've got a lot of guys who want to win. We do that here. We're going to work hard and we're going to have a lot of fun. It's going to be exciting." - Lightning forward Cory Conacher

There was not a lot of excitement early on as the first period featured about as much action as you can expect when facing the Devils. Aside from Radko Gudas's fight with Tom Kostopoulos (Gudas's first in the NHL), nothing notable happened and the period ended in a 0-0 tie.

The second period made up for it, however with a veritable flurry (remember, it's the Devils) of goals scored.

The Devils started the scoring at 5:50 when Andrei Loktionov scored on assists from Matt D'Agostini and Andy Greene.

Less than a minute later, Victor Hedman was whistled for an extremely questionable hooking penalty that resulted in a penalty shot for Kostopoulos, which he converted to make the score 2-0.

The Bolts began their first comeback at the 8:00 mark when Steven Stamkos scored on helpers from Martin St. Louis and Keith Aulie.

At 10:26, Nate Thompson tied the game when he squeezed between two defenders and scored on assists from Richard Panik and Gudas.

The Devils pulled back out in front again at 13;58 on a power play goal by Greene with D'Agostini and Marek Zidlicky offering assistance.

The period ended with New Jersey leading 3-2

At 2:39 of the third, the Devils doubled the lead to 4-2 when Ryan Carter scored shorthanded and unassisted.

The Bolts mounted their second comeback of the night at 7:11 when Stamkos scored his second of the night (and league-leading 25th of the season). Alex Killorn provided the assist.

With 15 seconds remaining in regulation and goaltender Mathieu Garon pulled for an extra skater, Killorn tied the game thanks to assists from Stamkos and Matt Carle.

When overtime failed to solve the matter, it was time for the shootout. Cooper elected to shoot first and sent out Teddy Purcell who scored. He was followed by Hedman who also converted while Garon turned away both New Jersey attempts to clinch the win.

"It's a win and that's what we needed right now. There were obviously mistakes that we made, it wasn't perfect systematically. We are changing some things up with the new coaching staff, so it's going to take some time, but to come back from two, two-goal deficits in a game against a team that has been finding ways to get points is huge. We were able to feed off that crowd and get a big win." - Stamkos

The Lightning will be in action again on Tuesday night, closing out this three-game homestand against the Florida Panthers. But tonight...

"My family flew down for this and they can be a rowdy, fun bunch sometimes, so we'll have fun with this one." - Cooper

Game notes: