The Tampa Bay Lightning locker room had plenty of options regarding who to name as the player of the game following an 8-3 win over the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary on Thursday.
Forward Jake Guentzel ended up with the award for scoring his first hat-trick as a member of the Bolts, but it was difficult to single out one player on a night of many positives—leading scorer Nikita Kucherov matched the franchise records for points (six) and assists (five) in a single game, and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy picked up the win in his 500th NHL game.
The Lightning, now 15-10-2 this season, led 4-3 through two periods before the visitors scored four goals in the third period to finish with an eight-goal night.
Coach Jon Cooper enjoyed the offense, but he was more impressed with his team’s well-rounded play in the third period to get back in the win column after a 2-1 loss in Edmonton on Tuesday.
“What I liked most was there’s 20 minutes to play, we have a one-goal lead, let’s see what winning looks like. It’s not the fact that they scored four, it was the fact that we didn’t give anything up. And that’s how you win hockey games,” Cooper said. “You can’t sit here and say we’re just gonna keep scoring ourselves to a win. In the third we defended ourselves to a win, and that’s what I was proud of.”
Calgary opened the scoring 4:42 into play on a Jonathan Huberdeau rush goal, but Kucherov earned the first of six points on Thursday when he tied the game. Kucherov stripped Huberdeau of the puck at the defensive blueline before beating Flames goalie Dan Vladar on a breakaway with 1:20 left in the first period.
Guentzel earned his first goal of the night 6:25 into period two, and the Bolts got power-play goals from Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli 3:10 apart for a 4-1 lead.
Calgary closed the second period with back-to-back goals, one off Nazem Kadri’s stick and another from Connor Zary to make it 4-3 through two periods.
Brandon Hagel extended Tampa Bay’s lead to 5-3 just 43 seconds into the third period. The Bolts followed up with two more Guentzel goals as well as a score from rookie Conor Geekie.
Guentzel’s second goal came on the power play when he roofed a backhand shot on the rush. The play started with a Kucherov backcheck to disrupt a shorthanded Flames chance before he fed Guentzel in the offensive zone.
“He’s a magical player and you’re extremely fortunate if you can have one, maybe two on your team,” Cooper said of Kucherov. “It’s been a pleasure to be around him. He’s just so smart. He can just create something out of nothing. But if you see, there’s the 2-on-1 against and he was the guy that backchecked. He played both ends of the rink, that’s what makes him special.”
Tampa Bay’s power-play finished 3-for-3 in the win, and the Lightning didn’t take a penalty for a lopsided special teams performance. After Calgary fought their way back to make it a one-goal game on Thursday, the Lightning didn’t panic.
“It was just a pretty consistent effort by everybody,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said, “and even when it was a tight 4-3 game there, we just stayed with our gameplan and didn’t change much.”
The defenseman said Hagel’s goal also started with a good hockey play, referencing a forecheck by Tampa Bay’s second line which kicked off the sequence that ended in Hagel scoring his 13th goal of the year on a snapshot into the top left corner of the net.
Hagel joined Cirelli on the second line alongside rookie Conor Geekie. The trio showed potential on Thursday, as Cirelli had a goal and two assists while Hagel had a goal and one assist to go with Geekie’s fifth goal of the year.
Point also pointed to Hagel’s goal as the one that started the late offense for the visitors. The Lightning finished with five defensemen due to Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak not playing with day-to-day injuries, and Moser left Thursday’s game in the second period due to injury.
“Calgary did such a good job coming back. They have so many third period comeback wins this year that we know they’re never out of it,” Point said. “That was a nice goal by Hags early in the third there, and I think we just kind of played smart after that and tried to limit their chances.”
Point had his third four-point outing in his last four games, scoring one of Tampa Bay’s three power-play goals and assisting on three other scores. He gave credit to both of his linemates on a night the top line combined for 13 points.
Kucherov had the primary assist on Point’s goal in the second period.
“Especially playing on his line, it just makes the game so much easier. Six points tonight, just incredible. It’s not hard to believe coming from Kuch,” Point said, “but he’s been rolling this season and he’s obviously such a big part of our wins.”
The final member of the top line, Guentzel, also received praise from his teammates on Thursday—McDonagh said it was “only a matter of time” before Guentzel earned his first hat-trick with the Lightning. Guentzel leads all NHL players on new teams this year with 29 points in 27 games and was quick to find chemistry with Point and Kucherov.
“It was only a matter of time. Such a smart player and can play that highly skilled game with those two guys and he’s making the right reads, they’re feeding off each other and they’re just playing hockey,” McDonagh said. “It’s pretty impressive to watch.”
Not lost in the offensive madness was goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who made 19 saves to earn the win in his 500th NHL game. Vasilevskiy’s 306 wins are the most in NHL history through a goalie’s first 500 games.
“He’s been the backbone of this team, backbone of this franchise for the last decade here,” McDonagh said of Vasilevskiy. “So credit to him. He’s so consistent, hungry to win and we just feed off his competitiveness. And great for us to come through on a milestone game for him.”
Up next for Tampa Bay is a Saturday game in Seattle against the Kraken (15-14-2) at 10 p.m.
Ben’s Three Stars:
- Nikita Kucherov, TBL (1 Goal, 5 Assists)
- Jake Guentzel, TBL (3 Goals)
- Brayden Point, TBL (1 Goal, 3 Assists)
