Gaining possession in the offensive zone at the start of the third period, Hagel sent a pass back to the point for Emil Lilleberg, who hammered a one-timer that was set to go wide of the net, but Stamkos brilliantly reached out and deflected the puck past Varlamov to make it a two-goal game.
In a playoff-style defensive performance, Tampa Bay shut things down and held the Islanders to just seven third period shots before Cirelli scored an empty-net goal off assists from Kucherov and Victor Hedman to cap off the 4-1 win.
The Bolts will close out the three-game homestand at 7 p.m. ET Monday night against the Detroit Red Wings.
Bolts by the Numbers
- Steven Stamkos scored his 30th goal of the campaign for the ninth 30-goal season of his career. Stamkos is just the 47th player in NHL history to log nine 30-goal seasons while the only active players with more on their resume are Alex Ovechkin (17) and Sidney Crosby (12).
- Nikita Kucherov picked up two assists and has now recorded 20 points (4- 16—20) over his last nine games. Kucherov is up to 84 helpers this season (42-84—126), the second-most in a single season in Lightning franchise history, trailing only his 87-assist campaign (41-87—128) in 2018-19.
- Anthony Cirelli recorded his second three-point game of the season with two goals and one helper. Cirelli is up to 40 points this season (18-22—40) and is only one goal shy of tying his career-high 19-goal campaign (19-20—39) in 2018-19.
- Darren Raddysh scored his first career NHL power-play goal and pushed his season point total to 29 (6-23—29).
- Brandon Hagel logged his 16th multi-point outing of the season with two assists to push his season point total to 66 (23-43—66).
- Emil Lilleberg picked up an assist for the second-straight game and is up to five points on the season (0-5—5).
- Victor Hedman recorded his 71st point of the season with one assist (12-59—71).
- Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves on 28 shots against to improve to 28-16-2 on the season. Since the Lightning’s nine-game point streak started March 9, Vasilevskiy is 7-0-1 with a .930 save percentage, 2.01 goals against average, one shutout and one assist.
Bolts Quotes
- Jon Cooper: “There's been a lot of buy in here down the stretch of what we need to do to give us a chance to make the playoffs and it was really looking after our own end. You can see our goals against this last stretch has gone way down, so that's been a big part of it.”
- Steven Stamkos: “It’s not obviously the start we wanted. They shoot the puck from the wall. It deflects off a couple guys and goes in. Maybe earlier in the year we get a little dejected, but obviously when you’re on a roll like we have been and you’re playing the right way, you’re just sticking to the gameplan and you’re executing shift after shift, it begins to wear other teams down. I thought, in the first, that was the model for our success.”
- Cooper on Andrei Vasilevskiy: “He's been the rock. Just watch tonight. When the Islanders really poured it on there in the second period, he had to make some big-time saves to give us the lead going into the third period. That's what you need from your guy. When the team breaks down in front of you, somebody's got to be there to clean up the mess and Vasy did that tonight.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
1. Andrei Vasilevskiy
2. Anthony Cirelli
3. Nikita Kucherov
Lightning Look Ahead
- Monday, April 1 vs. Detroit Red Wings, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena
- Wednesday, April 3 at Toronto Maple Leafs, 7 p.m. ET, Scotiabank Arena
- Thursday, April 4 at Montreal Canadiens, 7 p.m. ET, Bell Centre
