Penguins spoil Lightning's Stanley Cup ceremony to welcome new NHL season
CBC
Tristan Jarry had 26 saves, Danton Heinen and Brian Boyle scored early second-period goals, and the short-handed Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning 6-2 in the regular-season opener on Tuesday night.
"It's a process but I think we proved that we can play against a team like that, we can play well and we can win," Simon said.
Tampa Bay got goals from Anthony Cirelli and Andrew Killorn, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 29 shots. Star right wing Nikita Kucherov didn't have a shot on goal, while defenceman Mikhail Sergachev was minus-5.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was in attendance as Tampa Bay unveiled its 2020-21 Stanley Cup banner during a pregame ceremony. The Lightning have won two consecutive titles following pandemic-impacted and abbreviated regular seasons.
"We wanted to kind of spoil it," Heinen said.
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Lightning coach Jon Cooper said the outcome would have the same if the opponent had been the Penguins' minor league team.