Caufield, Canadiens top Lightning for 6th straight win to gain in Atlantic

TAMPA -- Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky each had a goal and an assist for the Montreal Canadiens, who won their sixth straight game with a 4-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Tuesday.

"They are a team that we've definitely been trying to get to," said Caufield, who scored his 47th goal of the season. "It's a big thing to get six in a row here. We've been building. I don't think everyone's been perfect, but we've found ways and obviously goaltending has been a huge part of that. It's obviously a good feeling, but we're still hungry for more."

Mike Matheson had an empty-net goal and an assist, and Nick Suzuki also scored for the Canadiens (43-21-10), who have won seven of eight (7-1-0). Jakub Dobes made 36 saves.

“He looks in the zone right now,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said of Dobes. “I see a confident guy who’s playing with some swagger. He looks big in net.”

Montreal pulled within two points of Tampa Bay for second place in the Atlantic Division, and remained four behind the Buffalo Sabres for first.

"It felt like a playoff game out there and there's a chance we could see them in the playoffs," Suzuki said. "We'll get them again in a week. It's a really good team and it's fun to go up against them."

Jake Guentzel scored for the Lightning (46-22-6), who had their eight-game point streak end (6-0-2). Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves.

"They played well," Lightning forward Brayden Point said. "We had some looks, just weren't able to finish them. They got one tonight (on the special teams) and we didn't."

Tampa Bay fell out of a tie for first place in the Atlantic, two points behind Buffalo.

Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who is second in the NHL with 121 points (40 goals, 81 assists) this season, returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games with an illness.

Slafkovsky gave Montreal a 1-0 lead with a 5-on-3 power-play goal at 12:25 of the first period, a one-timer from the right circle off a pass from Ivan Demidov that beat Vasilevskiy five-hole.

Guentzel tied it 1-1 at 13:41 with a wraparound shot that got past Dobes short side after faking a shot on the far side.

"They obviously defended well and the goalie had some big stops for them too," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "We had a lot of shots in the third. It took us 40 minutes to really get some sustained offense and sustained O-zone time."

Caufield put the Canadiens ahead 2-1 at 12:49 of the second period after Slafkovsky raced down the left side, drawing the attention of the defense, and sent a pass to the slot to Caufield, who scored into an open net for his 300th NHL point.

Matheson scored into an empty net at 17:55 of the third period to make it 3-1 and Suzuki added another empty-net goal 59 seconds later for the 4-1 final.

"We gave ourselves a chance to at least get points out of the game; I can't say we gave ourselves a chance to win," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "We had the puck a lot in the third period. It's going to say we had 37 shots; we probably should've had 57. I didn't think we created enough."

NOTES: Caufield (165 goals, 135 assists in 360 games) became the fastest Canadiens player to reach the 300-point mark since Mark Recchi (316 games on Dec. 29, 1998). … Montreal has allowed one goal or fewer in four straight games for the fifth time since 2005-06. The others: 2016-17, 2014-15 (twice) and 2012-13. ... Kucherov was minus-3 with six shots on goal in 23:10 of ice time.