There haven’t been many nights where the wins have come easy for the Tampa Bay Lightning. On Tuesday, they had one of those evenings as they scored early and often against the Pittsburgh Penguins on their way to a 6-1 victory. Skating in his 500th career regular-season game, Anthony Cirelli had two goals while Nikita Kucherov cracked the 100-point barrier for the fifth time in his career with a three-point night. In a night where he wasn’t relied on that much, Andrei Vasilevskiy picked up his 34th win of the season (and 326th of his career) by making 14 saves on 15 shots.
The Lightning used a barrage of goals in the first period to chase Tristan Jarry from the net after just 16 minutes of ice time. Cirelli opened the scoring at the 12:13 mark and Ryan McDonagh followed up just over a minute later. Tony Two Goals lived up to his nickname less than two minutes after McDonagh’s goal before Brayden Point chased Jarry with his 35th goal of the season.
Alex Nedeljkovic stopped the bleeding in the first period, and denied the Lightning on several opportunities early in the second. The Bolts didn’t let up on the gas, though, and they added two more goals in the middle frame. First it was Nikita Kucherov snapping one home on the power play, and then Brandon Hagel wrapped things up just before the end of the period as he crashed the net and tapped home a pass from Nick Perbix.
Pittsburgh, who was outclassed all night had the hollow joy of denying Vasilevskiy his shutout when Bryan Rust tipped home a shot late in the third period. With an assist, Sidney Crosby ran his points streak to 11 games against the Lightning.
It wasn’t all sunshine and winning lotto tickets, though. After starting with seven defensemen, the Lightning finished with just six after Erik Cernak left the game in the first period with an undisclosed injury. That was one of the few blemishes on a night where the Lightning simply skated circles around the Penguins.
As nice as it was to see the offense return, the lock-down play in their own zone was even more impressive. Yes, the Penguins are a shell of their former selves, especially with Evgeni Malkin out of the line-up, but the Bolts held them to just four high-danger chances all night long at 5v5 play. Pittsburgh generated just 11 shot attempts in the second period, which included a full power play that didn’t generate a single shot attempt.
The reunited top line of Kucherov, Point, and Jake Guentzel put up 21 shot attempts, with 13 scoring chances, and two goals as they spent most of the night picking apart the Penguins defense. Pittsburgh simply gave them too much room in the offensive zone and Point was able to weave in and out of the dangerous areas of the ice with little resistance.
With the victory, the Lightning keep pace with Toronto, who dropped seven goals on the Flyers in their victory, and picked up some ground on idle Florida. With all three teams having played 71 games, Toronto and Florida have 89 points while the Lightning have 87. Ottawa and Montreal both lost to give Tampa Bay a little breathing room over the two teams currently occupying wild card spots.
Utah comes to town on Thursday as the Lightning’s three-game home-stand continues.
The Goals
Anthony Cirelli (Nick Paul, Ryan McDonagh) 1-0 Lightning
Ryan McDonagh (Nikita Kucherov, Erik Cernak) 2-0 Lightning
Anthony Cirelli (Brandon Hagel, JJ Moser) 3-0 Lightning
Brayden Point (Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov) 4-0 Lightning
Nikita Kucherov (Darren Raddysh, Oliver Bjorkstrand) Power Play, 5-0 Lightning
Kucherov with his third point of the night with an absolute laser 💥 📺: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ http://watch.sportsnet.ca
— NHL (Bot) (@notnhl.bsky.social) March 25, 2025 at 9:47 PM
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Brandon Hagel (Nick Perbix, Emil Lilleberg) 6-0 Lightning
Bryan Rust (Matt Grzelcyk, Sidney Crosby) 6-1 Lightning
