Alex Killorn scored with 15.1 seconds left in the third period and Tampa Bay won 5-4 in a shootout over the New Jersey Devils to give new Lightning coach Jon Cooper a victory in his NHL debut on Friday night.
The Lightning pulled even at 4 when Killorn scored from the right circle. Teddy Purcell and Victor Hedman scored for Tampa Bay in the shootout.
Cooper was hired as the eighth coach in Lightning history Monday, one day after the team announced the firing of Guy Boucher. Cooper had been coaching Syracuse of the AHL, Tampa Bay's top minor league team.
Steven Stamkos scored his 24th and 25th goals this season and added an assist for the Lightning. Nate Thompson had the other Tampa Bay goal.
The Devils got goals from Andrei Loktionov, Tom Kostopoulos, Andy Greene and Ryan Carter.
After blowing a two-goal lead, Greene's power-play goal put the Devils up 3-2 with 6:02 left in the second. Carter's short-handed goal made it 4-2 at 2:39 of the third.
Stamkos cut the Lightning deficit to 4-3 on his second goal of the game at 7:11 of the third.
Local
The Devils took a 2-0 lead in the second when Loktionov (5:50) and Kostopoulos (6:41) scored 51 seconds apart. Kostopoulos stopped a personal 30-game goal drought, dating back to Feb. 25, 2012, against Philadelphia — when he beat Mathieu Garon on a penalty shot.
The Lightning tied it at 2 midway through the second on goals by Stamkos (8 minutes) and Thompson (10:26).
Stamkos scored when he swatted a waist-high rebound into the net after Martin Brodeur made a strong save on the Lightning center. Thompson's goal came after he got through two New Jersey defenders and had a rebound of his own shot go off his leg and past Brodeur.
Brodeur late in the second got a piece of Cory Conacher's point-blank shot that also hit the post.
