It may not have been their prettiest win of the season, but it was, at least in the words of their head coach, “it was a pretty damn good effort”, as the Tampa Bay Lightning picked up their fourth win on their five-game road trip, defeating the Dallas Stars, 4-1. Andrei Vasilevskiy earned first star of the game honors with a 19-save effort, highlighted by stoning Jason Robertson on a breakaway in the waning seconds of the first period with the score tied at one.
It was a bit of an auspicious start for the Lightning netminder as Dallas opened the scoring when a rather routine shot from Nils Lundqvist trickled through Vasilevskiy’s pads and was sitting there for Oskar Back to poke home just four minutes into the game. The Bolts didn’t let it get to them and Dominic James tied things up as he beat Jake Oettinger on the short side off of a rush with Jake Guentzel a few minutes later.
The teams traded offensive chances for much of the night, but the goaltenders were up to the task, and it wouldn’t be until midway through the period when Brandon Hagel put the Bolts up a goal with his 23rd of the season. There was a little puck luck involved as a shot from Darren Raddysh felled Sam Steele in front of the net. That gave Nikita Kucherov a lane to feed the puck to an unmarked Hagel down low. After his initial attempt was stopped by Esa Lindell, Hagel was able to stuff it over the line.
The Jake and James Duo hooked up again at the end of the period to make it 3-1. This time it was Dominic James getting the initial shot on goal and Guentzel cleaning things up for his 21st of the season. The trio of James, Guentzel, and Gage Goncalves had a solid night as the Lightning outshot the Stars 7-1 and posted an 8-0 edge in scoring chances when they were on the ice.
Up by two goals heading into the third period, the Lightning shut down the Stars over the last 20 minutes. They allowed just 12 shot attempts, blocking 8 of them with Vasilevskiy only having to stop two shots all period. Pontus Holmberg had the empty-net honors as he was able to shuffleboard the puck into the net from center ice.
Fun With Numbers
- Andrei Vasilevskiy picked up his 20th win of the season. That’s 10 seasons with at least 20 victories for the netminder. Only Sergei Bobrovsky (12) has more among active goaltenders.
- With his assist on Brandon Hagel’s game-winning goal, Nikita Kucherov has now factored in 173 game-winning goals in his career. That ties Steven Stamkos for the most in franchise history.
- The Lightning are 14-4-1 against the Western Conference this season.
- With the win the Lightning reached 2,704 points in franchise history. That places them 23rd all-time in the NHL. They have a chance to close the gap against the team ranked 22nd, the San Jose Sharks with 2,711, when they face them at Benchmark Arena on Tuesday.
