2. HISTORIC NIGHT ON THE POWER PLAY
Tampa Bay's power play has been heating up of late with three goals over the last two games.
On Thursday, that special teams unit was downright scorching.
The Lightning scored on their first four power plays of the game and finished five-for-eight overall with the man-advantage, the five power-play goals matching a franchise record for most in a game set previously on March 19, 1995 in a 6-1 win at Buffalo.
Tampa Bay is now 7-of-11 over the last two games on the power play.
"Our power play, we've been kind of producing, but we haven't had the best runs where it seems like it's kind of taken momentum out of our team," Killorn said. "But tonight, it seemed like it was clicking. Once Stammer gets shooting from over there, it's tough for teams to defend that."
The Lightning got an early 5-on-3 after going up 1-0 when Brendan Lemieux was sent to the box for cross-checking and Tony DeAngelo was hit with a slashing call before the Rangers had a chance to get a whistle on the call to Lemieux, Killorn doing a good job of not letting DeAngelo bait him into a matching minor.
"I heard the ref give DeAngelo a penalty, and once I heard that, I just got out of there as quick as possible," Killorn said. "There's no need to be a tough guy when you know you have a 5-on-3."
Just five seconds into the 5-on-3, Killorn netted the first of his two power-play goals, tipping Nikita Kucherov's shot past Rangers starting goalie Alexandar Georgiev.
With another power play remaining, Kucherov sent a wicked wrister from the top of the right circle to the top far corner past Georgiev to make it 3-0 Lightning and open the floodgates.
"Anytime you get an opportunity like that, especially at the beginning of the game, you want to take advantage because sometimes you get a 5-on-3 and you don't score, it kind of puts a damper on things," Stamkos said. "So we were able to get one, you get some touches early, you get some good mojo and we were able to take advantage of some power plays, so that kind of set the tone for the rest of the night."