The Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday dropped a 4-2 game to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
Vegas opened the scoring on a first period power-play goal and added another score two minutes, 31 seconds later. A Jack Eichel goal in the final minute of the period made it 3-0 after 20 minutes.
Nick Paul got the Lightning on the board with the lone goal of the second period before the Golden Knights added an empty-netter in period three.
Nikita Kucherov’s 30th goal of the season closed the scoring. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves for Tampa Bay, while Ilya Samsonov had 35 stops for Vegas.
The Lightning are now 40-25-5 this season. They return home for Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, set for 7 p.m. at AMALIE Arena.
Scoring summary
First period
VGK 1, TBL 0
11:02 Nicolas Roy (11) - William Karlsson, Alex Pietrangelo - PP
Nicolas Roy’s power-play goal opened the scoring on Sunday. Teammate William Karlsson walked toward the net on the left side before finding Roy in the open ice in front of Tampa Bay’s net and scored on the one-timer.
VGK 2, TBL 0
13:33 Tomas Hertl (31) - Reilly Smith
The Golden Knights doubled their lead on a shot from the high slot by Tomas Hertl.
VGK 3, TBL 0
19:13 Jack Eichel (23) - Zach Whitecloud
Vegas’ third goal of the period came on a one-timer from Jack Eichel at the left circle after Zach Whitecloud held the puck in the zone at the right blue line.
Shots on goal: VGK 13, TBL 13
Second period
VGK 3, TBL 1
17:38 Nick Paul (21) - Gage Goncalves, Darren Raddysh
Nick Paul opted to shoot on a 2-on-1 rush and found the top left corner of the net to get Tampa Bay on the scoreboard late in period two.
Shots on goal: TBL 15, VGK 8
Third period
VGK 4, TBL 1
17:18 Nicholas Hague (5) - Pietrangelo, Brett Howden - EN
An empty-net goal for Vegas extended the home team’s lead.
VGK 4, TBL 2
19:55 Nikita Kucherov (30) - Victor Hedman, Brandon Hagel - PP
A Nikita Kucherov power-play goal in the game’s final seconds closed the scoring.
Total shots: TBL 37, VGK 30
