The Backcheck: Bolts stay hot, score four unanswered to defeat Oilers

The Tampa Bay Lightning scored four unanswered goals in a complete team effort to earn a sixth straight win on Tuesday night.

The Lightning beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 at AMALIE Arena to earn the franchise’s longest win streak since posting six wins across late February and early March 2021.

Tuesday’s win improved the Lightning to 33-20-4 ahead of Thursday’s matchup with the Calgary Flames. The team is now 2-0 after the two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.

“We know how close things are, and we’re trying to get that little bit ahead,” forward Nick Paul said. “We know what these points mean, and everyone’s just buying in, working hard in practice and getting some confidence going.”

An early Edmonton power play opened the scoring on Tuesday. The league’s leading goal scorer, Leon Draisaitl, fired home his 43rd of the season on a snap shot from the right hash mark that found the bottom left corner of the Lightning net 11:53 into the game.

The Lightning didn’t allow Edmonton to hold the lead for long.

Tampa Bay forward Gage Goncalves carried the puck into the left corner of the offensive zone before leaving the puck for Mikey Eyssimont, who deked to his backhand and roofed a shot through Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner 78 seconds after the Oilers opened the scoring.

“Toward the end of my shift, but I still had a little juice and was able to kind of get back up with the play,” Eyssimont said of the goal. “Gage made a really good drop pass to my stick, and I just put it on my backhand, put it in.”

The Lightning outshot Edmonton 36 to 24 on Tuesday. After a tied opening 20 minutes, only the home team would find twine the rest of the way.

Tampa Bay required only 29 seconds into the second period to gain their first lead.

After Zemgus Girgensons won a puck battle at the offensive blue line, Brandon Hagel barreled the puck behind the goal line and tucked his wrap-around shot inside the right post for the 2-1 goal.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper liked the way his team responded after allowing the game’s first goal.

“Any momentum they had, we snuffed it out,” Cooper said. “It was a pretty even first period, I guess, but now we’ve put a team on their heels—and a heck of a team, but they’ve been struggling here coming out of the break. So that was a big thing for us was let’s put them behind again and make them have to chase it. That was a big goal 30 seconds in.”

Hagel, Girgensons and Anthony Cirelli have played together in both games out of the 4 Nations break. That trio pulled their teammates into the fight on Tuesday, according to Paul.

“You look at Haggy, C and Girgy’s game tonight, they got over the red (line), they were putting pucks deep and were just hounding pucks,” Paul said. “They were winning battles, going up to the D, strong-side shot, winning battles again. When a line like that’s doing it, it’s easy to follow suit.”

A 5-on-3 power-play goal from defenseman Victor Hedman extended the Tampa Bay lead 5:38 into the middle frame.

Hedman rifled his one-timer from atop the power play setup through an Oiler penalty killer, and the deflected puck slipped through Skinner for the defenseman’s ninth goal of the season.

Paul closed the scoring with the lone goal of the third period. The tough-minded forward crashed the net and deflected home a Jake Guentzel 2-on-1 pass in front of the net, scoring on Tampa Bay’s first shot on goal 7:23 into the period.

The Lightning limited one of the league’s most potent attacks to a single goal and scored four unanswered goals for their 13th comeback of the season. Nikita Kucherov led the team with two assists on a night that was about sharing the love—ten different players recorded a point for Tampa Bay, and the team’s defensive effort was praised postgame.

“Tonight, all night, for three periods, we played winning hockey,” Eyssimont said. “And that starts with taking care of the puck.”

Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped Connor McDavid on numerous blistering rushes while halting four of five Draisaitl shots. Since Feb. 1, the Russian goalie’s six wins and .933 save percentage both lead the NHL.

Vasilevskiy, who stopped 23 of 24 Edmonton shots for a .958 save percentage and his sixth consecutive win, called his team’s winning formula “simple” on Tuesday.

“We did not give up much over the last few games, and when we have a scoring chance, we score goals,” the goalie said. “Simple.”

As the Lightning go for a seventh consecutive win on Thursday against Calgary, the focus from Tuesday—and the previous five games as well—on playing a complete game won’t be forgotten.

“Tonight’s game sticks out because we really defended well…We’re not giving up a slew of chances,” Cooper said. "When we do, it’s one and that’s it. The odd man rushes aren’t there, so we’ve really done a good job in just concentrating on the area that you need to to win. And hence, a few in a row have gone by here now.”

Benjamin’s Three Stars:

1. Nikita Kucherov, TBL (2 assists)
2. Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL (23 saves, win)
3. Brandon Hagel, TBL (Game-winning goal)