Marchenko's goal in third period lifts Blue Jackets past Lightning

COLUMBUS –- Kirill Marchenko scored the go-ahead goal at 1:15 of the third period to help the Columbus Blue Jackets defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 at Nationwide Arena on Saturday.

Marchenko gathered a feed from Dmitri Voronkov and wired a wrist shot from the right face-off circle under the glove of Jonas Johansson.

Kent Johnson and Damon Severson scored for the Blue Jackets (2-3-0), who had lost their past two games. Jet Greaves made 22 saves.

Columbus was coming off a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday in what coach Dean Evason said was the worst effort of the season.

“You look at our season so far and before tonight, three out of the four games we were happy with. Our performance just didn't go our way,” Blue Jackets forward Mathieu Olivier said. “Last game, we weren't really happy. So, I just felt like sometimes you need to mix it up a little bit, change the juju, as they say. And it was a good time for it.”

Ryan McDonagh and Anthony Cirelli each scored for the Lightning (1-3-2), who have lost three straight (0-1-2). Johansson made 28 saves.

“It’s tough. We’re on a four-game road trip with multiple back-to-backs,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We’d gotten points in all the games and thought a good period and we’d get a point out of this. It’s unfortunate.”

Johnson made it 1-0 at 4:58 of the first period. A bouncing puck in the slot went off Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak and Johnson scored on the backhand for his first goal of the season.

McDonagh tied it 1-1 at 12:42 with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle that deflected off Greaves’ glove and the crossbar before going in.

Cirelli scored on the power play to give Tampa a 2-1 lead at 16:22. Jake Guentzel sent a shot towards the net that went off the right pad of Greaves to Cirelli, who backhanded the puck in from the top of the crease.

“We had spurts there where we were playing on all cylinders, really putting the pressure of them,” McDonagh said. “We get the lead there then we took our foot off the gas and allowed them to pretty much hem in us the entire period.

“We’ve got urgency when we’re down, we need to have that urgency when we’re up in games too to get closer to playing a 60-minute game.”

The Lighting had nine shots after two periods and were outshot 14-3 in the second.

“I thought the guys were so good tonight,” Greaves said. “We had some talks for the last couple days just about how we wanted to play and I think the guys did such a great job of that.”

Severson evened it 2-2 at 13:59 of the second period with a wrist shot from the high slot off a pass from Olivier.

“It’s nice to score, obviously,” Severson said. “We had a couple chances we could have buried, but I got a chance right in the slot. Olivier made a really nice pass to me and that was one that I definitely needed to bury. It changed things. Going into the intermission, it gives the boys a little bit of swagger, for sure.”

Greaves made 15 saves in the third period when the Lightning pressed for the equalizer.

“We were hard on pucks, played a solid game and we ended up getting rewarded early in the third,” Severson said. “Then we competed our butts off there, all the way through to the to the buzzer and got a big win.”

NOTES: Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov missed a second straight game because of illness. ... Marchenko became the first Blue Jackets player to score five goals through the team’s first five games of a season. He also has six points (five goals, one assist) on a four-game point streak. … Guentzel's assist gave him at least a point in 16 straight games against the Blue Jackets. The only players with an active point streak of at least that length against an opponent are Leon Draisaitl (18 games vs. the Chicago Blackhawks) and Connor McDavid (17 vs. the New Jersey Devils). … Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman recorded an assist to give him 799 career NHL points (171 goals, 628 assists) in 1,137 games.