With four games remaining in the regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning are just three points shy of tying their 98-point campaign from 2022-23 following a 5-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets Tuesday night at AMALIE Arena.
Behind a hat trick from Steven Stamkos, along with a three-point performance from Nikita Kucherov, the Bolts improved to 44-27-7 on the year with an impressive home record of 24-10-4.
Brayden Point scored the game-opening goal at the 16:31 mark of the first period to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead with his 44th goal of the season.
Crossing over the Columbus blue line, Anthony Duclair sent a pass toward the slot for Kucherov. Calm as ever, Kucherov took the pass off his skate and onto his stick blade before making a beautiful spin move and putting the puck right onto the tape of Brayden Point, who quickly fired a one-timer past Jet Greaves for the game-opening goal.
The Blue Jackets kept fighting though and Kirill Marchenko got the score evened up at one apiece when he fired a shot from the slot that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy and made it a 1-1 game with 42.2 seconds remaining in the opening frame.
With Columbus on the power play ahead of the midway point of the second period, Marchenko scored his second goal of the night on another shot from the slot to put his team up 2-1 with his 23rd goal of the year.
But the Blue Jackets lead didn’t last long with Stamkos netting the game-tying goal 7:04 later to send the teams to the second intermission with the score even at two apiece.
With the lethal Tampa Bay power play moving the puck around the Columbus zone, Victor Hedman found Kucherov at his usual spot on the half wall, near the right circle. Patiently surveying his options, Kucherov rifled a pass through traffic that ended up near the bottom of the right circle for Stamkos, who shortened up his grip on his stick and beat greaves with a one-timer for his first goal of the night.
After that, the Bolts never looked back.
At the 5:40 mark of the third period, Stamkos sent a pass to the high slot for Brandon Hagel, who fired a shot on goal that was stopped by Greaves. But Anthony Cirelli was right at the top of the crease providing traffic and was able to collect the puck off his skate and beat Greaves with a backhand shot to hit the 20-goal mark for the first time of his career.
Now with a 3-2 lead, the Lightning didn’t even give the fans time to sit back down before Stamkos extended the advantage to 4-2 just 16 seconds after Cirelli’s go-ahead goal.
Taking a pass from Erik Cernak, Hagel skated around the Blue Jackets net and looked for an option before seeing Stamkos set up shop in the high slot. Lifting his stick in the air to show he was ready for a feed, Stamkos took the pass from Hagel and hammered a one-timer past Greaves to make it a two-goal game with his second goal of the night and 38th tally of the season.
Looking to complete the hat trick, Stamkos stepped onto the ice with a little over two minutes remaining before teaming up with Kucherov to net his 13th career hat trick.
Winning a race to a loose puck in his own zone off the faceoff, Kucherov banked the puck off the boards, which allowed Stamkos to use his speed and gain possession before finding the back of the net for his third goal of the night to cap off the 5-2 win.
Vasilevskiy finished the game with 31 saves on 33 shots against and improved to 30-1-2 on the season.
Bolts by the Numbers
Steven Stamkos scored his franchise-leading 13th career hat trick (second of the season) to extend his goal streak to six games (10-2—12). Stamkos has scored seven goals over his last three contests and is the first player in Lightning franchise history to record three straight multi-goal efforts. Stamkos is up to 77 points on the season (39-38—77) and became the sixth player in NHL history, age 34 or older, with three consecutive multi-goal efforts, joining Alex Ovechkin, Patrice Bergeron, Marian Hossa, Norm Ullman and Doug Mohns. Among all active skaters age34 or older, Stamkos is the third player this season to record a six-game goal streak (also: Jamie Benn; Alex Ovechkin).
Nikita Kucherov recorded his fourth-straight three-point game with three assists and joined Steven Stamkos (5 GP in 2021-22) as the only players in Lightning franchise history to record three or more points in four consecutive contests. Kucherov has now recorded 25 multi-assist games this season, joining Connor McDavid (26) and Nathan MacKinnon (25) as the only players to reach the mark this year. Kucherov has now recorded 139 points this season (43-96—139), tying Peter Stastny (46-93—139 in 1981-82) for the second-most points in a single season by a player born outside of North America (most: Jaromir Jagr, 62-87—149 in 1995- 96).Kucherov has now recorded 23 three-point games this season, making him just the seventh different player in NHL history with as many instances in a single season (also: Wayne Gretzky (10x), Mario Lemieux (4x), Phil Esposito, Steve Yzerman, Bernie Nicholls and Jaromir Jagr.
Brandon Hagel picked up two assists for his 18th multi-point game of the season. Hagel has recorded 10 multi-assist games this year and is up to 72 points on the campaign (24-48—72).
Brayden Point scored his seventh game-opening goal of the season, the most among all Lightning skaters. Point is up to 86 points this season (44-42—86) and has 12 goals over his last 13 contests (12-9—21).
Anthony Cirelli scored a goal to record his first career 20-goal season (20-24—44).
Andrei Vasilevskiy recorded his seventh-straight 30-win season. Only Martin Brodeur (12) and Patrick Roy (8) have logged more than seven consecutive 30-win seasons in NHL history.
Bolts Quotes
Steven Stamkos on the third period: “We talked about it in between periods. We're pros here and you've got to go play for the crest and for the fans. Like I said, I thought we had a better response here in the third. We just want to continue to build and hopefully we can keep that going.”
Brandon Hagel on Nikita Kucherov potentially reching 100 assists in a single season: “Yeah, I just got my 200th point. He's almost got that in a year.”
Stamkos on his goal streak: “When you get in a groove like this, you certainly never want it to end. You try to put yourself in positions where you get the puck on net because they are going in right now. It’s certainly a great feeling and just continue to go at it. You want to put as many in as you can.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
1. Steven Stamkos
2. Nikita Kucherov
3. Kirill Marchenko
Lightning Look Ahead
- Thursday, April 11 vs. Ottawa Senators, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena
- Saturday, April 13 at Washington Capitals, 5:30 p.m. ET, Capital One Arena
- Monday, April 15 vs. Buffalo Sabres, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena
