7
0
Lightning sleepwalk for 30 minutes, still crush Jersey.
TB-6
NJ-3
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed three goals on 25 shots for the win. Stat line would’ve been far better without Cernak literally shooting pucks at him.
First Period
8:27 NJ Mercer (11), (Hughes, Sharangovich)
9:05 TB Maroon (8), (unassisted)
19:04 NJ Sharangovich (10), (Tatar, Mercer)(PP)
Second Period
1:48 NJ Hughes (14), (Mercer)
15:32 TB Stamkos (23), (Kucherov, Rutta)
16:13 TB Killorn (16), (Sergachev, Hedman)
Third Period
7:17 TB Hedman (11), (Perry, Bellemare)
9:14 TB Kucherov (7), (Point)
10:21 TB Bellemare (6), (Perry, Maroon)
Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov were the game’s first and second stars. New Jersey’s people picking Kucherov as second star proves to me they didn’t watch the game.
For half that game the Lightning looked like they militantly wanted to be anywhere on planet earth but Newark, New Jersey. On the one hand, who can blame them for that. On the other hand, that’s still no excuse for Erik Cernak to literally score a goal on his own netminder and Victor Hedman to casually not clear a puck he had on his stick seemingly forever on Jersey’s second goal. Fortunately, the Devils are truly trash and a half game’s effort was all it took to run them out of their own rink.
With a win in their next game the Lightning will be sitting at 50 games played with a full segment’s worth of 12 points banked. Impressive.
Cal Foote had 2 penalty minutes for trying to murder a Devil for colliding with Vasiy at the end of the game. He also had 1 shot and 1 blocked shot in 10:57. He’s now six games shy of graduation from prospect status on the site.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
