The Backcheck: Dominant second period leads Bolts over Ducks

Touchdown, Tampa Bay.
The Lightning skated to an emphatic 6-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks Tuesday night at AMALIE Arena and extended their franchise record home point streak to 15 games. The Bolts last regulation loss on home ice came back on December 8, 2022.

"It's never easy," said Lightning forward Ross Colton. "Like I've said before, we have great fans. We feel like we play well on home ice and we use that momentum to our advantage."
After a scoreless first period saw the Ducks outshoot the Bolts 12-9, Tampa Bay came out for the second period with a purpose. The Lightning were flying all over the ice and finished the period with a 22-1 shot advantage, outscoring Anaheim 4-0 in the process. It marked the third time this season that the Bolts have scored at least four goals in a single period. It was also the 20th time in 28 home games this year that Tampa Bay has scored four or more goals.
Nick Paul opened the scoring at the 7:15 mark of the first period when he collected the puck in the neutral zone and barreled downhill into the Anaheim zone before firing a quick wrist shot that got through the five-hole of Lukas Dostal.

The goal snapped an 11-game goal drought for Paul, who set a new career high with his 17th goal of the year and mentioned that he took a bit of advice from Lightning founder Phil Esposito and decided to do one simple thing - shoot the puck.
"I was sitting on 16 for a little bit there and clutching my stick a little bit," said Paul. "I saw Phil at dinner the other day and he told me to shoot the puck more. It ended up working."
From there, the floodgates opened for the Lightning, who scored four goals in the span of 5:55. Ross Colton blasted home a one-timer on the power play off a dish from Mikhail Sergachev at the 9:48 mark before Anthony Cirelli took a pass from Nick Perbix and made a nice move to the backhand to beat Dostal just 1:03 later. Zach Bogosian wrapped up the second period scoring with his first goal of the season, when he hammered a slap shot from the point that found the back of the net.
"We had the puck a lot in the first period, but I don't think we really got any chances," said Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper. "It was kind of a carryover from the Vegas game.
"The goalies were seeing every puck. We can shoot as much as we want. If they're going to see them, it's going to be an easy night for them.
"I thought we kind of dug in a little bit there and had a little bit more net front, a little bit more snarl in front of the net.
"I think that opened up some stuff for us and pucks started going in for us. It was probably a little bit more blue-collar hockey that helped us in the second period."
After the big second period, the Bolts kept things rolling into the third period. Brayden Point scored his team-leading 33rd goal of the season, a power-play goal, at the 1:06 mark of the third off a pass from Nikita Kucherov. It was Point's 200th career NHL goal, scored in his 473rd game, making him the second-fastest player in Lightning history to hit the 200-goal mark, trailing only Steven Stamkos (354 GP).
"It's funny," said Point. "Watching Heddy just get 500 career assists. Stammer's hitting 500s and thousands. I hit 200, so it's a little humbling, that's for sure."

With his assist on Point's goal, Kucherov extended his franchise record home point streak to 18 games.
Corey Perry scored the final Tampa Bay goal of the game just 1:17 later when he redirected a pass from Vladislav Namestnikov that went top shelf for his 12th goal of the season. Over the past 11 games, Perry has scored six goals, tied with Point for the team lead during that span.
Nick Perbix finished the game with three assists and became the first rookie defenseman in franchise history to record multiple three-point games.
Andrei Vasilevskiy won his 12th-straight home game, moving him within two wins of tying the franchise record that he set two seasons ago.
The Lightning will be right back at it on Thursday night with a home matchup against the Buffalo Sabres. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. ET.