Stamkos scores No. 499, Lightning top Canucks in 9th straight home win

TAMPA -- Steven Stamkos scored his 499th NHL goal and had an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning in their ninth straight home win, 5-4 against the Vancouver Canucks at Amalie Arena on Thursday.

Stamkos scored on a 5-on-3 power play to give Tampa Bay a 5-2 lead at 5:30 of the third period. He finished with seven shots on goal.
Stamkos can achieve the milestone when the Lightning visit the St. Louis Blues on Saturday.
"I'm trying, shoot the puck and things are going to happen," Stamkos said. "I had some good looks tonight. I just don't want guys to feel obligated to force the puck; that's human nature. That's something you do when guys are close to milestones like that."

Alex Killorn, Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov also had a goal and an assist for Tampa Bay (26-13-1), which won 6-3 against the Columbus Blue Jackets here on Tuesday.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves, including a sliding pad stop against Curtis Lazar with two seconds left.
"We came out of these last two home games with four points," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "I like the way we played most of the time. I didn't like either third period."
Quinn Hughes had a goal and two assists, and Elias Pettersson had a goal and an assist for Vancouver (17-21-3), which has lost its past five road games in regulation. Collin Delia made 30 saves.
"[Defending] is something we've been dealing with all year," Hughes said. "That's no way to win in this league. Putting up four in Winnipeg, whatever it was last game (5-4 loss at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday) and four tonight. We should be getting points in those games. We have to figure out the other side of the ice."

Conor Garland gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead at 4:14 of the first period when he collected a rebound in the crease and scored into an open net.
Corey Perry tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal on a redirection of Mikhail Sergachev's shot at 14:37.
Killorn gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead at 2:30 of the second period, but J.T. Miller tied it 2-2 at 5:44 on a breakaway.
Kucherov put the Lightning back in front 3-2 at 15:44, and Hagel extended the lead to 4-2 at 19:29 from the slot off a pass by Killorn.
"Obviously 'Killer' made a heck of a play, using his big body and protecting the puck," Hagel said. "It wasn't a crazy breakout pass … it was hard work by Killer, and he was able to find me."

Hughes cut it to 5-3 at 14:40 of the third period with his 200th NHL point. He is the fastest Vancouver defenseman to reach the milestone (242 games).
"You like to see that the guys are still competitive and there's no quit," Hughes said. "It's always encouraging, but we didn't get any points even if we did play better."
Pettersson scored at 17:52 with Delia pulled for an extra attacker to make it 5-4.
"I thought we started the game really well, but we're just having a tough time stringing together 60 minutes," Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers said. "When you see how good of a team we can be when it's good, we wonder why we can't do that more often."

Vancouver kept the extra attacker on the ice and had a power play to close out the game, but Vasilevskiy made the stop against Lazar on a 2-on-1 from close range as time expired.
"[Heck] of a save, obviously a game saver in every essence of that term," Stamkos said. "To give up those two goals, not ideal. We want to clean up those things. We did a good job of getting a three-goal lead, [but] then sat back a little too much."
NOTES: Lightning forward Brayden Point had two assists but had his nine-game home goal streak end. … Tampa Bay defensemen Ian Cole and Erik Cernak were each minus-3. … Canucks defenseman Travis Dermott left the game in the second period because of an undisclosed injury. … Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson was a healthy scratch. … Canucks defenseman Luke Schenn had an assist and a game-high nine hits, and Pettersson led all skaters with eight shots on goal.