Stamkos extends point streak to 14, Lightning defeat Kraken

TAMPA -- Steven Stamkos extended his point streak to 14 games for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 6-2 win against the Seattle Kraken at Amalie Arena on Tuesday.

Stamkos, who scored in the third period, has 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) during the streak. He had an 18-game point streak in 2009-10, the longest in Lightning history.
Nikita Kucherov had three assists, and Brayden Point scored for the fourth straight game for Tampa Bay (18-9-1), which has won four of its past five games. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves.
"It was a weird game," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "[Seattle] is a heck of a team. I think they still carry that expansion mantra with them a little bit, but they certainly don't play like that. It was obviously a closer game than the score indicated."

Jared McCann and Ryan Donato scored for Seattle (16-9-3), which has lost four of five (1-4-0). Philipp Grubauer allowed four goals on 20 shots before he was pulled at 5:48 of the second period. Martin Jones made eight saves in relief.
"We were a little bit slow on everything and they're going to take advantage of that in a big way," Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. "I felt like it should have been a 1-1 hockey game after the first period."
Ian Cole gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead at 1:31 of the first period when his shot from the point got through traffic, and Erik Cernak made it 2-0 at 7:24 with a wrist shot from the right face-off circle.
"We did a really good job in the [offensive] zone," Point said. "There were some extended shifts in our [defensive] zone that we need to clean up, but for the most part I thought offensively we were good."

McCann cut it to 2-1 at 18:39 on a 2-on-1 with Jordan Eberle.
"They scored two pretty quick ones, and then I thought after that we played pretty hard," Kraken center Jaden Schwartz said. "Obviously the first 5-6 minutes wasn't ideal."
Corey Perry scored a power-play goal to make it 3-1 at 12:13 of the second period, and Point made it 4-1 on a backhand flip at 13:28.
"That was unbelievable," Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said of Point's goal. "I don't think people understand how hard of a shot that was with the backhand either. That's going to be on the highlight reel for a very long time. Beautiful goal, beautiful celebration."

Cooper was equally impressed.
"He's an elite player," Cooper said. "And he can do elite things. You watched him do an elite thing. Only a few guys in the League can do things like that, and he's one of them."
Ross Colton gave Tampa Bay a 5-1 lead on a redirection at 15:36.
Stamkos scored his 497th NHL goal at 5:29 of the third with a put back of his initial shot to make it 6-1.
Donato made it 6-2 with five second left.
"We carried the play at the end of the first period and had a great second period," Hakstol said. "When that third goal went in, that took a lot out of us. We were pretty good for 30 minutes of that hockey game. We did a lot of good things, and we deserved a little bit better in terms of where the scoreboard was."
NOTES: Kraken defenseman Justin Schultz was a late scratch. Hakstol did not have an update. ... Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev had two assists but left the game late in the third period after blocking a shot with his hand. ... Kucherov has 401 NHL career assists in 590 games, the fastest Lightning player to reach the mark. Martin St. Louis needed 709 games. ... McCann has scored in three of his past five games.