Tarasov gets shutout, Red Wings top Lightning, end five-game skid

Daniil Tarasov made 31 saves for the Detroit Red Wings, who ended a five-game losing streak with a 2-0 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Saturday.

Lucas Raymond had a goal and an assist, and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard scored for Detroit (8-10-3).

“Felt pretty good,” Tarasov said. “Obviously, we needed this win. It was kind of a tough road trip (1-3-0) and we ended really strong against a really good opponent. It’s boosted our confidence.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning (13-5-2), who lost for the first time at home (8-1-0) and had won five of their past six.

“I feel like their goalie stole one. That’s what I felt like happened,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We had at least four pucks behind him, we just didn’t get to him. Are you going to call that execution? I don’t know. He played really, really well. … I can’t fault our process at all. It was like there was plexiglass behind the goalie. For whatever reason, they weren’t going in.”

The Lightning had a 9-5 edge in shots on goal after the first period, and Tarasov had to be especially sharp in the second half of the period. He denied Brandon Hagel, who entered the game with five goals in a three-game goal streak, on back-to-back attempts off the rush with just over eight minutes remaining. Less than two minutes later, Tarasov got in front of a Conor Geekie backhand from in front at 6:51.

“You’re always going to make mistakes in a game, and the way he plays, he gets us out of those situations and keeps us in the game,” Raymond said. “That’s all you can ask for from a goalie, and then it’s up to us to score goals and make life as easy as possible for him.”

Raymond gave Detroit a 1-0 lead at 13:12 of the second period. He settled a pass from William Wallinder with his skates and directed it to his stick before breaking in from the Lightning blue line and beating Vasilevskiy with a snap shot to the glove side. 

“Just one of those plays,” Raymond said. “Great pass by ‘Wally’ and I had a lot of time there. Happy it went in.”

Brandsegg-Nygard scored an empty-net goal at 19:17 of the third period for the 2-0 final.

“Tough game for sure,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “We feel like we have control of the game. We’re getting looks, we’re not giving up too much and obviously didn’t find a way to get one behind him. There were pucks laying all around him and we couldn’t get that second opportunity on him. 

“Give them credit. They allowed him to see the puck a lot and cleared it out. … For us, just trying to execute a little bit better at times offensively when there were some looks to be made.”

NOTES: Tarasov’s shutout was his second in his nine appearances with Detroit. Only three netminders have done so in the NHL's expansion era (since 1967-68): Kevin Hodson (six games from 1995-96 – 1996-97), Ville Husso (seven games in 2022-23) and Jared Coreau (eight games in 2016-17). … It’s the second time in the past 35 years that Detroit has ended an opponent’s home winning streak of at least eight games. It last did so on March 22, 2013, ending a 13-game run by the Anaheim Ducks. … Brandsegg-Nygard’s goal was his 12th career point, moving him past Andreas Martinsen for third most by a Norwegian rookie in NHL history.