Lightning top Hurricanes, extend winning streak to seven

RALEIGH, N.C. --Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves, and the Tampa Bay Lightning won their seventh straight game with a 3-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena on Sunday.

Steven Stamkos had a goal and an assist, and Nikita Kucherov had two assists for Tampa Bay (24-13-4), which is 10-2-1 in its past 13 games.
Vasilevskiy is 7-0-0 in his career against Carolina.
WATCH: [All Lightning vs. Hurricanes highlights]
"For the shot volume team that they are, we kind of kept them off the board a little bit," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "To get the goals early and make them have to catch up was a benefit for us."
Andrei Svechnikov scored for Carolina (24-16-2), which has lost two in a row and five of its past seven. Petr Mrazek made 23 saves.
"We weren't ready to play," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "There were two periods where we didn't do anything. You can't expect to win that way. We were flat."
Mitchell Stephens gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead at 2:36 of the first period when he received a cross-ice pass from Carter Verhaeghe and scored under Mrazek's right pad.

"[Verhaeghe] made an unbelievable pass, great vision on the play," Stephens said. "I just tried to get it off as quickly as possible."
Stamkos scored an unassisted goal from the high slot after Kucherov stripped the puck from Dougie Hamilton to make it 2-0 at 4:44.
"We gave them everything they got to start the game." Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. "The first two goals we gave to them. That's something we can't afford to do."
Brayden Point took a pass from the end boards by Kucherov and lifted a backhand shot top shelf from in front to extend the lead to 3-0 at 5:19 of the second period.
"To jump out to that 3-0 lead, it gave us some wiggle room to catch our breath a little bit," Stamkos said. "You could tell we were fatiguing a little bit toward the end of the game, but we stuck with it."
Svechnikov made it 3-1 at 11:48 of the third period, getting a backhand, cross-ice pass from Slavin on a rush and scoring blocker side.

The Lightning were on the penalty kill for the final 2:36 of the game but held off the Hurricanes playing 6-on-4.
"Obviously [Vasilevskiy] made some huge saves for us," Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli said. "From the defensemen to the forwards, we did a good job of trying to get sticks in lanes and bodies in front. Numerous guys had blocked shots. When we're committed like that, good things will happen."
Tampa Bay blocked five of its 16 shots during the final 2:36.
"I can't say enough about the penalty kill at the end," Stamkos said. "Guys were blocking shots. We've seen a lot more guys step up in that department, and that's part of a winning culture."

They said it

"You know what's happening? We're being rewarded for the way we played the month prior. We've been playing really well and we would walk away with one point or no points, or we would make two mistakes in the game and both of them would wind up in the net. We knew if we kept playing that way, we would eventually get rewarded, and now we are." -- Lightning coach Jon Cooper
"They were just better than us. They were way more faster, way more physical, and we didn't play our game. We didn't play (well) in the first two periods, and it cost us." -- Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov

Need to know

Point extended his point streak to five games (three goals, two assists). … Kucherov has 21 points (six goals, 15 assists) in 19 games against the Hurricanes. … The Lightning have had five winning streaks of at least seven games since 2018-19; only the Edmonton Oilers (six, 1983-84 and 1984-85) have more in a two-season span. … Carolina is the only team with four players who have at least 37 points (Svechnikov and forward Teuvo Teravainen, 41; Hamilton and center Sebastian Aho, 37).

What's next

Lightning: Host the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; SUN, SNP, NHL.TV)
Hurricanes: Host the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; FS-CR, NBCSP, NHL.TV)