The Tampa Bay Lightning utilized perhaps their best start of the season to open Atlantic Division play in winning fashion on Tuesday.
Tampa Bay led the Detroit Red Wings 2-0 before the first period ended at Benchmark International Arena and went on to claim a 4-2 win. They made history in the process by earning a seventh straight win on home ice.
"We were hungry. We were ready for them,” coach Jon Cooper said. “I thought that our transition game was excellent, our forecheck game was excellent. We were on top of them … What did we get, two (goals)? And we had some excellent chances. So that's as good a first period as we've played in a while, and it turns out we needed every one of them to finish this one off."
Tampa Bay was all over the puck to open Tuesday’s game, hemming Detroit in their defensive zone and outshooting the visitors 13 to 2 while holding a 37 to 6 advantage in shot attempts.
They took a 1-0 lead on the power play when Nikita Kucherov collected the puck on the left wall and fed a pass to Brayden Point in the bumper position, whose one-time shot fooled Detroit goalie John Gibson down low 7:54 into the game.
It marked Point’s 113th career power-play goal, passing Vincent Lecavalier for second most in franchise history. Only Steven Stamkos (214) has more.
Point then doubled the lead a few minutes later, accepting a Kucherov pass atop the circles and one-timing his shot into the top right corner of the net for his first multi-goal game this season. He now has four goals in his last four games.
“It’s nice to see it go in. It gives you confidence,” Point said. “Kuch is finding me there with lots of time and space, and I'm just trying to hit ‘em, and it's nice to see them go in.”
The tilted ice continued in the middle frame when Anthony Cirelli made it 3-0—JJ Moser circled the offensive zone and slid the puck to Gage Goncalves at the left post, where Goncalves tapped it to Cirelli for an open goal in the slot 8:41 into the middle frame.
The goal was Cirelli’s fifth of the season and stood as the game-winner on Tuesday.
Detroit avoided the shutout shortly after, cutting the score to 3-1 on a Lucas Raymond goal in the second period.
Detroit’s push didn’t relent until the closing seconds of the game. The visitors made it a 3-2 game with a power-play marker early in the third period and earned multiple open looks for a game-tying goal, but Andrei Vasilevskiy kept the home team in the lead.
Vasilevskiy helped the team erase consecutive penalties late in the game, including the denial of an open slot chance for John Leonard.
He finished with 19 saves for his seventh win of the year, including 12 in the third period. He halted all four shots he faced on Detroit’s late power plays.
“They came out strong,” Moser said of the pushback. “They made a big push, and we were shorthanded for a little bit of time, so we just had to battle through and get those block shots and battle.”
Ryan McDonagh’s first goal of the season found the empty Detroit net in the final seconds of the game for the 4-2 final score. Tampa Bay improved its record to 9-3-2 and is now 7-0-0 on home ice.
With Tuesday’s victory, the team established a new record for the longest home winning streak to open a season in franchise history.
"In a lot of these games we've gotten the lead, and special teams or goaltending or whatever has stepped up. You need a lot of things to go right for you to go on this little streak we have, and we’re proud of it,” Cooper said. “You hope to win a lot more games at home than lose them. Now you've just got to find a way to make sure we claw our way back on the road and not be a .500 to sub .500 team on the road as well as keep this going. But I'm proud of the guys for letting the fans walk out every single night in a good mood."
The Lightning will try to push that run to eight games when they host the Chicago Blackhawks at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
- Brayden Point, TBL (2 goals)
- Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL (19-save win)
- Nikita Kucherov, TBL (2 assists)
