Lightning get past Kings in 3rd to win 6th in row

LOS ANGELES -- Gage Goncalves broke a tie with 1:41 left in the third period, and the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied for their sixth straight win, 5-3 against the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Thursday.

Anthony Cirelli had tied the game 3-3 for Tampa Bay at 16:41. He was the first to a loose puck and chipped it into the top of the net from the right side.

Goncalves made it 4-3 by scoring at the left post after being stopped on a drive down the right side, and Nikita Kucherov scored into an empty net for the 5-3 final with 45 seconds remaining.

"We thought we had the puck for quite a bit of the night," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We just kept going. We had a chance. When the clock is ticking down, though, you never know, but a couple big efforts by the guys to get a couple (goals). We were knocking at the door, it was just, could we get through? And, fortunately for us tonight, we did."

Kucherov had a goal and two assists, Brayden Point scored twice, and Cirelli had a goal and an assist for Tampa Bay (24-13-3), which was coming off a 4-3 overtime win at the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday. Jake Guentzel and Darren Raddysh each had two assists, and Jonas Johansson made 17 saves.

Andrei Kuzmenko and Kevin Fiala each had a goal and an assist, and Corey Perry had three assists for Los Angeles (16-14-9), which has lost four of five. Darcy Kuemper made 19 saves in his first start since Dec. 15 because of an upper-body injury.

"We're looking for the result," Kings coach Jim Hiller said. "We played a really good game in Colorado (a 5-2 loss on Monday), so it makes you feel good that you're playing right there with them. It doesn't make you feel good you didn't get the win. Tonight, again, another really good team, we should have won the game. We need to win that game, that's the bottom line. There's not a lot of moral victories in this one for us tonight."

Point gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead on the power play at 3:34 of the first period. He took a feed from Guentzel across the slot and avoided the poke check by Kuemper before sliding the puck into an open net.

Jeff Malott, who was a healthy scratch the past six games, tied it 1-1 at 4:43. After Perry forced a turnover by Tampa Bay defenseman Declan Carlile on the forecheck, Malott got to the loose puck, spun and scored with a wrist shot from the high slot.

"'Mally' goes in, forechecks, finished the check,” Hiller said. “'Pers' is there to pick up the breakout under pressure and then Mally is able to reload and grab the puck, and a really nice shot. So, those are the types of goals, you call them fourth-line goals, you want to see. You want to see a forecheck, you want to see physicality and I thought he showed a great scoring touch on top of it."

Kuzmenko then gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal at 6:14. Perry's tip was stopped by Johansson, but Kuzmenko chipped the rebound into the net from the bottom of the left face-off circle.

"Our PK has been pretty darn good this year and they solved us," Cooper said of the Kings. "A little bit of our own doing."

Tampa Bay tied it 2-2 at 18:07 of the second period. Kuemper was caught on the wrong side of the crease when the puck went behind the net and Point scored into the open right side.

"We're sticking to our structure," Cirelli said. "We found a little groove of the right way that we need to play in order to be a good team."

Fiala put Los Angeles in front 3-2 on the power play at 1:37 of the third, scoring with a one-timer from the left circle off a cross-ice feed from Perry. It marked the first time this season the Kings scored multiple power-play goals in a game; they were the only team in the NHL not to have done so.

"They've been dangerous," Hiller said of the second power-play unit. "That group, in particular, is moving it well and they feel dangerous, as dangerous as we've been all year."

NOTES: Kucherov scored for a fourth straight game (six goals) and stretched his point streak to six games (12 points; six goals, six assists), including five straight multipoint games. He also became the second player in Lightning history with a six-game road multipoint streak, following Steven Stamkos (eight games; Oct. 7-Nov. 9, 2017). ... Perry, 40, became the oldest player in Kings history with three points in a game. Luc Robitaille (39 years, 336 days) scored three goals on Jan. 19, 2006. ... Los Angeles forward Trevor Moore did not play because of an illness.