Even 24 hours later, the big smile was hard to hide for Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Emil Lilleberg.
The 24-year-old scored his first career NHL goal—one that wound up being the game-winning goal for good measure—-in a 7-4 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday, and the young Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman on Monday said it still felt just as special a day later.
“It’s unreal, I would say. I think everybody was happy when I got that first goal,” Lilleberg said. “It’s a big deal when you get the first one.”
Everyone at AMALIE Arena on Monday was excited to see the player who is best known for his physical play get his first goal. That excitement spread back to his home country Norway, and Lilleberg’s brother was among the many people who were quick to send the Lightning defenseman a congratulations along with a friendly sibling jab.
“He said I was going to take the new record for so many games with no goals,” a smiling Lilleberg said of his brother's text. “He was so happy for me to not break that new record, so I thought that was really funny actually.”
A first goal sticks out for any player who reaches the world’s best hockey league, but Lilleberg’s first NHL marker carried extra weight on a global scale.
Lilleberg’s goal was his 24th career NHL point, tying Patrick Thoresen for the third-most points by a Norwegian-born player in NHL history. Lilleberg is just the second Norwegian defenseman in NHL history to score a goal.
The goal came after Lilleberg spent time with a family visiting AMALIE Arena from Norway last week, as 14-year-old Magnus Aanonsen wanted to see his favorite player, Lilleberg, in person.
Tampa Bay’s tough defenseman has garnered plenty of fans in his first two seasons with the team and has quite a following back in Norway, too. Hockey overall in Lilleberg’s home country has grown, he said.
“It’s huge. It means a lot to play up here,” he said. “There’s not that many players from Norway, but I think we had two guys from Norway in the last draft, so maybe they can come up in the next couple of years. It’s gonna be huge for Norway.”
One player Lilleberg looked up to as a young hockey player was Jonas Holos, the Norwegian-born defenseman who played 39 games for the Colorado Avalanche during the 2010-11 season.
Now, it’s Lilleberg’s turn to be the countryman young Norwegian hockey players aspire to be. Lilleberg has scored 19 points for Tampa Bay in 2024-25, and his 105 penalty minutes are seventh-most in the NHL. His 113 hits are fourth-most on the Lightning this season.
“It only happens once, your first goal,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Sunday of Lilleberg's goal. “You remember your first NHL game, and you remember your first NHL goal. It was great when guys were spraying him with the water bottle. It’s been a road for him to get here as well, and I couldn't be happier because he’s an extremely popular teammate.”
Forward Gage Goncalves on Monday also said the Lightning locker room was excited to see their rough-and-tumble teammate get his first NHL goal.
"Great rip by him. He works so hard and he does so many little things right, whether it's throwing hits, boxing out, sticking up for his teammates,” Goncalves said. “So to see him get one in that moment at the end of the year was pretty cool, and hopefully he's got a couple more here at the end of the year and in the playoffs.”
