Lightning push point streak to 13 with win against Stars

DALLAS -- Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning, which extended its point streak to 13 games thanks to a 4-1 win against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Sunday.

Dominic James also had a goal and an assist, Brandon Hagel scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves for the Lightning (30-13-4), who are 12-0-1 since Dec. 20.

“I liked our response after we went down one,” Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh, who had an assist, said. “We stuck to our game plan. We wanted to make them defend, and I thought we did pretty well in the first period there and then carried it into the second and third.”

Oskar Back scored and Jake Oettinger made 22 saves for the Stars (27-13-9), who have just two wins since the Christmas holiday break (2-6-3) and are 1-3-1 in their past 5 games.

“I think it’s just a story of they’re 11-0-1, now 12-0-1 in their last [13 games], and they just stayed with their game longer than we did. They won more battles,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “Quite frankly, the second and third goals were mistakes by our guys that are in our top two lines that are just pressing. I think all night they won more battles, especially in the second half, and they stayed with their game longer than we did.”

Back gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 4:00 of the first period when he swiped the puck into the net after it trickled under the pads of Vasilevskiy.

“It feels like [at] the start we were playing simple, putting pucks and getting pucks back on the forecheck. When things kind of start going against us, we get a little frustrated and try to do a bit much,” Back said. “We’re trying to find scoring anywhere right now. Everyone is trying to find something. Hopefully it’ll click soon.”

James tied it 1-1 at 8:04. He and Guentzel skated into the zone on the 2-on-1 rush down the left side, with James passing to Guentzel, and then getting the puck back for the snap shot from below the left face-off dot.

“That was a huge goal by James. On the road, they score first, and then [we] score within (almost) four minutes, it's a little bit of a momentum shift for us,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “They compete hard, they go get into those rough areas, corners in front of the net. Our guys [played] hard and that’s paid off.”

Hagel gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead at 11:04 of the second period when he scored from the right side of the net. Stars forward Sam Steel was on the ice in pain after blocking a shot from Raddysh, which drew Oettinger out to the right of the net to make the initial stop on the play and left his backside wide open for Hagel on the rebound chance following Nikita Kucherov's quick touch on the puck in front.

Guentzel located the puck in the slot off a rebound and ripped in a backhand shot to extend the Lightning's lead to 3-1 at 18:50.

“They have a couple centers who like to move their feet, so staying above F3 (third forward) and really kind of shutting it down through the neutral zone allows us to be successful in the [offensive] zone,” James said. “I just think we had the whole team going, we had four lines going, so that’s usually the recipe for success for us these last couple games and throughout that 12-game stretch. I think if we just keep sticking together, we’ll be alright.”

Pontus Holmberg scored into the empty net at 17:59 of the third period for the 4-1 final.

“I think we can all just dig in a little more and buy in,” Stars forward Justin Hryckowian said. “We aren’t happy with the results, and obviously everyone is trying. We have such a tight-knit group, and we are going to get out of this. We just have to start stacking plays, stacking games, stacking practices, and it will start going our way soon.”

NOTES: Vasilevskiy became the second goaltender in the League to reach 20 wins this season (joining Utah’s Karel Vejmelka). He has hit the 20-win mark in each of the past 10 seasons. … With an assist on the game-winning goal, Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov tied Steven Stamkos for the franchise lead in factoring into game-winning goals with 173 such instances. … Stars forward Mikko Rantanen skated in his 700th career game.