Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel each scored twice to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 6-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils. Nick Paul and Steven Stamkos also scored while Nikita Kucherov had two assists to once again leapfrog Nathan MacKinnon for the league-lead in points. Victor Hedman hit a milestone and had a three-assist night. Andrei Vasilevskiy had 22 saves on 25 shots by the Devils. Former Bolt Ondrej Palat had a goal and an assist for the visitors.
With the crowd amped up from a day of celebrating pirates, each period had its own feel to it throughout the night. In the first period, both teams did an excellent job of limiting offense and keeping things to the outside. This is a heat map that only coaches would love:
According to Natural Stat Trick there was all of one high-danger chance in the period and it belonged to the Lightning. In the middle frame, the Lightning kept their defensive form, holding the Devils to just 6 shot attempts and 2 high-danger chances. New Jersey, on the other hand, forgot about defense as it seemed that 90% of the period was played in their end.
Aided by a power play, Tampa Bay generated 31 shot attempts and 15 scoring chances. More importantly, they scored twice. First it was Nick Paul, camped out in front of goaltender Vitek Vanecek, deflected home a shot from Victor Hedman. For The Big Swede, the assist was the 700th point of his career, something only 28 other defensemen have achieved in the NHL.
Nine minutes later, Hedman threw another shot at the net and Paul used his pterodactyl-like reach to keep the play alive. Hedman fed another shot on net and Hagel was there to backhand a shot on Vanecek. It didn’t go in, but Hagel stuck with it and was able to jam a forehand shot home.
Then, the biggest moment of the hockey match happened. With time winding down on a period that the Lightning absolutely dominated, Dawson Mercer was able to find some space after stepping around Emil Lilleberg. He broke on the net but Vasilevskiy was there to make the stop. Earlier in the season, those were the types of plays that ended up in the back of the Lightning’s net to turn the momentum.
While the first period was all defense, the second period all Lightning, the third was punch and counterpunch. After a turnover on a breakout, Nico Hischier was able to fire a shot on Vasilevskiy that the Big Cat kicked out with his pad. Unfortunately, old friend Ondrej Palat was right there and he fired the puck home to make it 2-1. Would the Bolts blow the lead in the third period?
Not if The Captain had anything to do with it. A minute later, the Lightning were back in the Devils’ zone and Nick Perbix put a shot on net. Stamkos swooped in and pushed the loose puck home to re-establish the two-goal lead.
All night long the Lightning had been stepping up in the neutral zone to cut off the Devils offense. It worked. Well except for one time. Jesper Bratt attacked through the zone with speed and as Hedman went to cut him off, Bratt played it off the boards to himself and zipped around the Lightning blueliner. He wristed a shot on net that Vasilevskiy stopped, but the puck leaked through him and slowly wobbled over the goal line. Once again the lead was down to one goal.
The next goal came off a horrible gaffe in the defensive zone. We’ve seen it all year long. A player tries to clear the puck through the center of the ice and it’s picked off and put into the net. On this night it wasn’t the Lightning making the mistake, though, it was the Devils. Kevin Bahl’s pass from the boards missed everyone but Brayden Point who was in the right spot to whip it home.
The Lightning killed off a late power play, but with Vanecek on the bench, the Devils got one back as Tyler Toffoli deflected one home. It would be a tense finish for a festive night. Then Kucherov made one of the best defensive reads you’ll see.
Budding defensive star Luke Hughes thought he could look off Kucherov before dishing a pass. That didn’t work and Kuch picked the pass off which started a play that ended with Brayden Point putting it into the empty net. Brandon Hagel would add another empty-netter and that’s how we got to a 6-3 final score.
The Lightning are now off until early February as they get to enjoy their bye week and the all-star break back-to-back.
The Lines
The Goals
Nick Paul (Victor Hedman, Darren Raddysh) 1-0 Lightning
Brandon Hagel (Victor Hedman, Nick Paul) 2-0 Lightning
Steven Stamkos (Nick Perbix, Nikita Kucherov) 3-1 Lightning
Brayden Point (unassisted) 4-2 Lightning
Tyler Toffoli (Ondrej Palat, Simon Nemec) 4-3 Lightning
Brandon Hagel (Anthony Cirelli, Nikita Kucherov) Empty Net, 5-3 Lightning
Brayden Point (Victor Hedman) Empty Net, 6-3 Lightning
