Recap: Ducks Zapped in 6-1 Loss to Lightning

Rookie netminder Lukas Dostal made 38 saves, but the Ducks could not keep pace with the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight in a 6-1 loss at Amalie Arena.
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The setback pushed Anaheim's winless drought to six games (0-5-1) and dropped the club to 17-34-7 on the season. The Ducks continue their four-game road trip Thursday at Washington.
Ryan Strome scored the lone goal for Anaheim, snapping Andrei Vasilevskiy's shutout bid with 14 minutes to play in regulation. Cam Fowler and Trevor Zegras added assists.
Six different Bolts scored in the win, including Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and former Duck Corey Perry. Thirteen of 18 Tampa Bay skaters recorded at least one point, led by three assists from rookie defenseman Nick Perbix.
Vasilevskiy earned his 27th win of the season, second among league leaders, with 24 saves.
Neither side broke through in a back-and-forth first period despite multiple power plays and plenty of scoring chances on both ends of the ice.
Mason McTavish had Anaheim's best looks of the opening frame on a couple of whacks at a loose puck in tight, but Vasilevskiy flashed the right pad twice to somehow keep the puck out.
Dostal matched his Vezina Trophy-winning counterpart shortly thereafter on a Tampa power play, cooly denying both Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos's one-timers.
Dostal came up big again early in the second, with some help from both posts behind him. Veteran winger Alex Killorn beat Dostal with a backhand move from in tight, but saw his shot catch iron twice. The young netminder quickly found the rebound, diving across his crease with the blocker to shut down Stamkos on the second-chance opportunity.

It would take some home cooking for the Bolts to initially solve Dostal, with Nick Paul getting a bounce off Simon Benoit's stick check. The versatile checking line forward collected an Anaheim clearing attempt at center ice, racing back into the zone and firing a shot that tipped off Benoit as he knelt down for a block, changing course past Dostal for the game's first goal.
The goal, Paul's 17th of the season and first since Jan. 16, marked a new career-high for the former fourth-round pick.
The ice breaker seemed to give the Lightning some life, as they controlled the bulk of the second period territorially, outscoring the Ducks 4-0 and finishing the frame with an 22-1 edge in shots.
A power-play marker doubled the advantage two minutes after Paul's goal, with Ross Colton hammering a one-timer from the right circle past Dostal to the short side.
Mikhail Sergachev grabbed the primary assist, moving within one of Pavel Kubina for third-most by a defenseman in Lightning franchise history.
Cirelli pushed the lead to three on the next shift, Tampa's third goal in less than four minutes. Perbix activated down from the right point, drawing the attention of the Ducks defense before delivering a centering pass to Cirelli just outside the crease, where he beat the sliding Dostal with a move to the backhand.
Cirelli has seven points in his last six games (4-3=7).
With three assists on the night, Perbix logged his fifth career multi-point game and became the first Lightning rookie blueliner with two three-point performances. The 24-year-old recorded his first career NHL point in October at Honda Center.
Zach Bogosian capped Tampa's four-goal period on a blast from the point, using the screen of a Ducks defender to bury his shot just between Dostal's right leg pad and the post. The goal was Bogosian's first of the season.
Tampa Bay is the only NHL team to average more than four goals per game on home ice, scoring at four or more in 20 of their 28 home games so far.
Vasilveskiy made a terrific stop late in the frame for his only save of the period, flashing the glove on Zegras on a wide-open chance in the slot.

Anaheim would be unable to draw any closer in the third, as two early Tampa goals quieted any hopes of a comeback.
Point scored the first on the power play, his 33rd goal of the season, taking a pass on the doorstep from Nikita Kucherov in the corner and lifting a wrister over Dostal's glove.
The goal also marked the 200th of Point's 473-game NHL career. Point is the fifth player to score 200 goals in a Lightning sweater, joining Stamkos, Kucherov, Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.
Kucherov's assist was his 59th of the year, the second-best total of his nine-year career and one shy of Connor McDavid for the NHL lead this season. The former Hart Trophy winner is on pace for his third career 100-point season and now sits four points shy of 700 for his career.
Perry scored 1:17 later on a goal that looked quite like Point's, getting inside position in the slot and lifting home a pass from this corner, this one from Vladislav Namestikov.
With the goal, Perry's first against his original NHL team, the two-time Stanley Cup champion has now scored against all 32 NHL franchises.
Strome put Anaheim on the board with 14 minutes still to play, foiling Vasilevskiy's bid for his 30th career shutout. Just moments after the former Conn Smythe winner again robbed Zegras in alone, Strome worked his way to the front net, collecting a deflected puck and swiping it home off Vasilveskiy's left leg.

With the primary assist, Fowler has five points (2-3=5) in his last four games. He paces Ducks defensemen in scoring (9-22=31), goals and assists this season.
While Zegras would surely like a do-over on the chances that led two Vasilevskiy's best saves of the night, the assist did give the 21-year-old center points in five of his last six games (0-5=5) and 9-10=19 points in his last 19 appearances. Zegras is one of only two NHLers 21-or-younger to lead their team in scoring, alongside his longtime friend Jack Hughes.
The Ducks continue their four-game road trip Thursday in Washington.