Coyotes Fall to Lightning in Tampa on Thursday

STATS

Clayton Keller, Sean Durzi, and Lawson Crouse scored, and Connor Ingram made 32 saves, but the Arizona Coyotes fell 6-3 to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.

Darren Raddysh, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Mitchell Chaffee, and Luke Glendening scored for the Lightning, which has won seven of its last eight games. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves to earn his 15th win of the season.

Arizona split its season series with Tampa Bay 1-1-0, and will close out its pre-All-Star break scheduled in Carolina on Saturday.

"They have elite players, some of the best in the world, and they made us pay," head coach André Tourigny said. "They played a good game, they had four lines that played well tonight."

Raddysh opened the scoring 24 seconds into the game, beating Ingram through a screen to give Tampa Bay an early 1-0 lead.

Keller tied it up at 8:40 of the opening frame, firing home a rebound from Josh Brown’s shot to make it 1-1. The goal was the four-time All-Star's 20th of the season, marking his third straight season of recording 20-or-more goals. He is now the fifth Coyotes player with four-or-more 20-goal seasons -- along with Shane Doan (13), Keith Tkachuk (5), Jeremy Roenick (5), and Radim Vrbata (5) -- and is also the first Arizona player to record three-or-more consecutive 20-goal seasons since Shane Doan had 9 straight from 99-00 to 2008-09.

Point restored Tampa Bay’s lead late in the third, beating Ingram with a wrist shot with just 33 seconds to play to make it 2-1.

Tampa scored the first three goals in a four-goal second period, as Kucherov, Stamkos, and Chaffee recorded consecutive tallies to make it 5-1. Durzi scored his eighth of the season at 16:59 to bring Arizona to within three goals heading into the third period.\

"I thought we had good energy, just a couple mistakes against another great team," Keller said. "They have a lot of great players and they make you pay when you make mistakes."

Glendening made it 6-2 at 7:32 of the final frame before Crouse recorded his 19th of the season at 11:48 to round out the scoring, and the Coyotes will now shift their focus to the Hurricanes on Sunday, just two points out of the Western Conference's Wild Card spot.

"You want to stay in it, and we want to play those pressure games," Tourigny said. "We are in it right now, and that's an important one."

The Coyotes close out their pre-All-Star break schedule against the Hurricanes on Saturday. Puck drop is scheduled for 5 pm, and the game will be broadcast on Arizona 61 (TV) and ESPN 620 (Radio).