Lightning edge Stars in shootout for 3rd win in row

DALLAS -- Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli each had a goal and an assist for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 3-2 shootout win against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Thursday.

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves for the Lightning (40-23-5), who have won three straight. Gage Goncalves won it with his goal in the fourth round of the shootout.

“Everybody in the room was talking about a playoff atmosphere. [Dallas is] a really good team. They’re big, they’re fast and physical. We brought our best tonight, and it worked out for us,” Goncalves said.

Tampa Bay remained in third place in the Atlantic Division, two points behind the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs.

“It can be tough when you get the kind of chances we had and they’re not going in the net to kind of stray from their game. But they stayed the course and I thought they deserved the two points they got tonight,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s a funny game. I think why I'm proud of the guys is because we just kind of stuck with it and they got rewarded in the end.”

Oskar Bäck and Mason Marchment scored for the Stars (43-21-4), who are second in the Central Division. Casey DeSmith made 36 saves.

“I felt bad that we didn’t give [DeSmith] a better effort. For what he’s done for us this year, he deserved us to give him a better effort than we gave him tonight,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “They were harder, heavier, hungrier than us, which is inexcusable this time of year.”

Hagel gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 4:35 in the first period when he finished off a cross-crease pass from Cirelli.

Cirelli extended the lead to 2-0 at 7:21 in the second period. He scored with his backhand on a rebound in front past DeSmith's glove after Hagel drove to the net.

“Just trying to change the momentum. You want the good momentum they had in the first period. I tried to disturb that so we don’t get scored on too much,” said Stars defenseman Lian Bichsel, who had seven hits. “They had a really good start. It’s hockey. They had some better shifts in the first. But we know we have a good group, so we came back. In the end it was a tough battle.”

Back cut the lead to 2-1 at 7:58 when he deflected a point shot from Colin Blackwell.

“We came out strong. Getting pucks in behind their [defense], we were skating well, sticking to our structure. Really good team over there. They pushed and clawed their way back. But really great job of sticking to our game,” Cirelli said. “It was tight-checking. Their goalie made some saves, Vasilevskiy was unbelievable. No one wanted to make that mistake [to lose the game].”

Marchment tied it 2-2 at 13:48, knocking in a loose puck on a net-front scramble on the power play.

“You’ve got to enjoy the push that we gave," Marchment said. "That’s a good team over there. We definitely stormed back and kind of took over there for the majority of the second and third. It’s a great way to battle back but we shouldn’t put ourselves in that spot in the first place. If we just build off our second and third there, we’re going to be okay.”

NOTES: Hagel set an NHL record for the most goals scored by a player in a season without recording a power-play goal (32), beating the previous mark set by Doug Smail with Winnipeg in 1984-85 (31). … Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh left the game in the closing seconds of regulation after taking a puck to the ear. There was no update on his status from Cooper after the game. … DeSmith is 6-0-1 in his past seven starts.