Point's 2 goals, assist lead Lightning past Blues

ST. LOUIS --Brayden Point had two goals and an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 4-2 win against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Saturday.

"I liked how we played tonight. We need to build on that," Point said. "I thought our third period was good. I liked how we skated. I thought the effort was there."
Nick Perbix had a goal and an assist, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves for the Lightning (27-13-1), who have won three straight and seven of their past nine.
"Really good way to start [a five-game] road trip. We played a pretty good game," Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said. "We didn't give up a whole lot in the third period, we spent a lot of time in their end. At the end of the day, we didn't give up a whole lot. We played our game."

Pavel Buchnevich and Tyler Pitlick scored, and Jordan Binnington made 26 saves for the Blues (21-20-3), who have lost two straight.
"You're not going to get any easy games right now, for sure," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "Teams are going to check, they're going to check hard, and there's not a lot of room out there and we've gotta fight through it. We've got to fight through it more."
The Blues are 8-10-2 at home this season, which is tied for the third-fewest wins in the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks, Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim Ducks. They are 1-2-0 so far on a season-long seven-game homestand.
"Our home record's not been good, it hasn't been good all season," Blues forward Robert Thomas said. "We still got some games at home here before we head on the road trip [Jan. 26] to bring it back. So we need to be more urgent and win at home."
Pitlick gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 2:39 of the first period on a breakaway after receiving a stretch pass from Alexey Toropchenko.
"Came out pretty good and got the quick goal, obviously, and thought it was going pretty good," Pitlick said. "But that's a good team over there, too, and we just need to keep going and keep building off that. … I don't know what happened."

Point tied it 1-1 at 12:22. Perbix pinched in from the right point and beat Blues forward Noel Acciari to the puck before passing to Point for a one-timer in the slot.
Point then made it 2-1 at 16:43, tapping in a backdoor pass from Steven Stamkos on a power play.
"Guys dug in, the forwards were responsible," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "When you're playing in the offensive zone like we were, it's not as taxing. We didn't have to defend as much."
Perbix extended it to 3-1 at 12:44 of the second period when his slap shot from the right point deflected in off the glove of Binnington.
Perbix did not return for the third after sustaining an upper-body injury later in the period.
"We'll see," Cooper said regarding the timeline. "He got hit pretty good there. I don't foresee this being a long-term thing. We kept him off for precaution."

Buchnevich cut it to 3-2 at 13:55, scoring glove side from the high slot after forward Jordan Kyrou found him trailing on a rush.
Alex Killorn responded to make it 4-2 at 18:22 when he scored backdoor off a no-look backhand pass from Brandon Hagel.
NOTES:Stamkos extended his point streak to four games (one goal, five assists). He remains one goal shy of 500 in the NHL. ... Tampa Bay forward Nikita Kucherov had an assist to extend his point streak to five games (four goals, five assists). ... Blues defenseman Nick Leddy had two hits and 20:00 of ice time after missing four games with an upper-body injury. ... Kyrou has 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in his past 14 games.