6
0
Vengeful snowman in McDonagh’s 1,000th game.
UTA-0
TB-8
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped all 25 shots he faced for the shutout victory. Brian Engblom behaved himself and didn’t jinx it. Kudos.
First Period
1:30 TB Guentzel (35), (Kucherov, McDonagh)
4:20 TB Hedman (13), (Moser, Hagel)
Second Period
5:05 TB Goncalves (5), (Lilleberg, Gourde)
9:14 TB Kucherov (32), (Point, Raddysh)
17:54 TB Guentzel (36), (Kucherov, Hedman)(PP)
19:36 TB Bjorkstrand (18), (Gourde, McDonagh)
Third Period
8:59 TB Point (36), (Kucherov, Hedman)
14:54 TB Bjorkstrand (19), (Perbix)
Ryan McDonagh, Nikita Kucherov, and Vasilevskiy were the game’s three stars.
I admittedly discounted the Lightning’s dominance last time out against Pittsburgh because I thought the Pens waved the white flag at the first sign things weren’t going their way. Tonight was different. The Lightning did stake themselves to an early 2-0 lead after 20 minutes but what happened thereafter wasn’t a result of Utah giving up. They kept playing hard but the Lightning blew them off the rink anyway, and that was impressive. The bigger long term bonus was that Oliver Bjorkstrand got a couple of garbage time goals and hopefully that opens some floodgates for the Danish sniper. I think he’s taken a little longer than Gourde to gel with this group, which makes a large degree of sense. Tonight hopefully was the night he started to become a regular offensive contributor for the club.
Tampa Bay moves into a three-way tie atop the Atlantic with Toronto and Sunrise at 89 points, although they’re surrendering a game in hand to both clubs. 10 games left to go in the regular season for Tampa Bay and the chance to miss an opening round blood bath against one of those two clubs is still on the table.
Something else to possibly keep an eye on. Michigan State junior and Hobey Baker Trophy finalist Issac Howard unexpectedly crashed out of the NCAA tournament at the hands of Cornell tonight. The Lightning are likely to back the Brinks truck up to try to sign Howard and he may very well be a straight-to-the-NHL addition to the club, or at the very least a very short stay in Syracuse before going to the NHL. Stay tuned on that front.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
