9
0
Tampa Bay cools off the hottest team in the league… convincingly.
TB-4
SEA-1
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed one goal on 23 shots for the victory. I’m not sure there’s many goaltenders who’ve had more buzzard’s puck luck cost them shutouts the way Andrei has these past couple of years.
First Period
18:43 TB Bellemare (2), (Cole, Perry)
Second Period
NO SCORING
Third Period
6:44 TB Paul (16), (unassisted)
10:44 SEA Dunn (8), (Larsson)
18:21 TB Hagel (17), (Killorn, Cernak)(EN)
19:16 TB Hedman (2), (Hagel, Stamkos)(EN)
Nick Paul was the game’s first star. Goofy of the Seattle media to give their players two of the stars in a game their club got the life choked out of them. Give one to Grubauer, sure. But to give a star to Dunn was bush league as hell.
Tampa Bay set their minds to treat this five game road trip as a measuring stick, and thus far they’re 2-0-0-0 including today’s clinical handling of a red hot Seattle team that had just swept a seven game road trip of their own. The Lightning played a patient, controlled game and really limited Seattle’s shots and chances. But for a point shot that takes an unfortunate bounce off Cole, this was a Picasso as far as that goes. What made it all the more impressive was that it happened despite lineup juggling due to Perbix being out to injury.
Tampa Bay closes, for the moment, to within two points of Toronto while holding two games in hand on the Leafs. They’ve also knotted Toronto in goal differential at +30.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
