The Backcheck: 2022 ends with a victory over Arizona

Happy New Year, Bolts fans.
The Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up 2022 with a bang, coming from behind after falling into a 2-0 deficit and defeating the Arizona Coyotes 5-3.

The Coyotes got on the board first 6:12 into the game after Andrei Vasilevskiy made the initial save on a shot from Travis Boyd, but the rebound jumped off his pad and took an unfortunate bounce off Zach Bogosian before finding its way into the back of the net to put Arizona up 1-0.
With plenty of time in front of them, there was no need to panic for Tampa Bay, but things escalated just 34 seconds later when Christian Fischer jumped on a rebound in front of Vasilevskiy and quickly put the Bolts in a 2-0 hole with 13:14 still remaining in the opening frame.
Things had the potential to go from bad to even worse when Erik Cernak was whistled for interference 1:11 after the Fischer goal, but the Lightning were able to get the penalty killed off and gained some momentum before Brayden Point scored his team-leading 21st goal of the season at the 10:53 mark to get Tampa Bay back within one.

"If you do down three, that might have been a little bit more deflating," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "But we got through it and big goal by Pointer.
"He's been on quite a tear of late. The hand-eye coordination to do that was pretty impressive."
Completing a nice give-and-go with Nikita Kucherov, Point collected the return pass off his skate and was able to calmly bat the puck out of midair past Karel Vejmelka and extend his goal streak to four straight games.
Point has now found the back of the net in eight consecutive home games, setting a new Lightning franchise record and passing Kucherov's seven-game streak during the 2021-22 season. Overall, Point has found the back of the net in nine of his last 11 contests, scoring 11 goals during that span.
From there, Tampa Bay took off with back-to-back goals in the second period as Mikhail Sergachev scored his sixth goal of the season before Steven Stamkos blasted home a one-timer for the 498th goal of his career.
Nick Bjugstad was able to get the game tied up shortly after, but after a turnover at the Arizona blue line, Alex Killorn flew into the offensive zone all alone and beat Vajmelka to the glove side to put the Bolts back up by one with 1:01 left in the second period.
After a boarding penalty by Josh Brown put the Lightning back on the power play early in the third period, the Bolts finished things off with Victor Hedman firing a shot from the point that got tipped home by Brandon Hagel for his 14th goal of the season.

For Hedman, it was his third assist of the evening and 491st of his career, tying him with Vincent Lecavalier for the third-most in Tampa Bay franchise history.
"He's played at an elite level for a long time," said Cooper. "All the names at the top of that list are all elite players. He deserves to be up there and I'm pretty proud of him."
The Lightning have now won seven consecutive games at AMALIE Arena and improved to 15-4-1 on home ice this season.
From here, the Bolts will hit the road for a back-to-back with Chicago and Minnesota on Tuesday and Wednesday before the three-game trip concludes at Winnipeg on Friday night. Puck drop in Chicago on Tuesday is set for 8:30 p.m. ET.