Kucherov has 2 assists, reaches 1,100 points in Lightning win against Red Wings

TAMPA -- Nikita Kucherov reached 1,100 points by getting two assists, and Jake Guentzel and Gage Goncalves each scored twice for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 4-1 win against the Detroit Red Wings at Benchmark International Arena on Thursday.

Kucherov (391 goals, 709 assists), playing in his 863rd career game, became the 14th player born outside of North America to reach the 1,100-point milestone and the fourth fastest on that list to achieve the feat, behind Peter Stastny (793 games), Jari Kurri (824 games) and Jaromir Jagr (825 games).

"I mean he probably doesn't get the recognition he deserves," Goncalves said. "He's the best player in the League."

Brayden Point had two assists for the Lightning (40-20-4), who had lost two straight and six of their previous seven. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.

"It was by no means a perfect game, but there were a lot of things to take from it besides the two points," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "We played with much more emotion. We skated better. We were decent at getting the puck out of our own end. We were better."

J.T. Compher scored for the Red Wings (36-23-7), who have lost four of their past five games (1-3-1). John Gibson made 24 saves. 

"Nobody is feeling sorry for the Red Wings and nobody in the locker room should feel sorry," Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. "We have a job to do. First thing we have to do is recover from this loss, then we have to figure out how to plug some holes."

Guentzel gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal just 49 seconds into the second period on a wrist shot from the right face-off circle off a pass from Kucherov after Corey Perry started the play from outside the offensive zone.

Tampa Bay appeared to go up 2-0 at 15:15. Declan Carlile's shot from the point deflected off the stick of Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson and popped over Gibson into the net, but the goal was waved off for goaltender interference by Perry.

Goncalves did give the Lightning a 2-0 lead at 1:35 of the third period. Point's slap shot from above the right circle deflected off the skate of Detroit defenseman Ben Chiarot and then Goncalves in the slot before going in off Gibson's right pad.

"I'm trying to get to the net and I'm happy they're going in," Goncalves said. "We have guys in the crease and in the blue paint, it's something we talked about before the game. Our D-man did a great job of getting pucks to the net and everybody was sitting in the blue paint."

Compher cut the deficit to 2-1 at 7:05. Alex DeBrincat took a wrist shot from above the right circle that Compher deflected past Vasilevskiy from the slot.

"I still think that we created enough," Compher said. "It wasn't super pretty the whole time, but that's a team that blocks shots really well. And when you get it past their blocks they have one of the best goalies in the world, if not the best goalie in the world. They make it hard to score."

Goncalves made it 3-1 with his second goal at 16:22. Point curled into the high slot and put a wrist shot on net that was tipped by Goncalves from in front.

"For us to be successful we have to use our speed," Point said. "It's one of our assets and over the last few games I thought we had been lacking that."

Guentzel secured the 4-1 final with an empty-net goal just 33 seconds later at 16:55.

"I think we played well enough to win," DeBrincat said. "We had a couple of bad breaks. I don't want to say we played bad, but we gave up a little bit too much."

NOTES: Kucherov has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) during a four-game streak. ... Vasilevskiy became the second goaltender in NHL history to record nine consecutive 30-win seasons, following Martin Brodeur (12 from 1995-96 – 2007-08). ... Point has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in his past nine games. ... Cooper became the third head coach in NHL history to earn 700 wins with one franchise (regular season & playoffs), following Al Arbour (859 with the New York Islanders) and Lindy Ruff (704 with the Buffalo Sabres).