Going into Thursday night’s contest against the Minnesota Wild, the Tampa Bay Lightning were looking for their first win at Xcel Energy Center since April 2, 2011, after dropping 10 consecutive games in St. Paul over the past decade.
That winless streak came to an end with a sound, 4-1 win over the Wild behind goals from Darren Raddysh (2x), Victor Hedman and Brandon Hagel.
After the first period ended in a 0-0 tie, Raddysh opened the scoring with his first goal of the season and gave the Bolts a 1-0 lead 4:31 into the middle frame.
Raddysh made a nice play to pinch up the right boards in the offensive zone and force a turnover from former Lightning forward Pat Maroon, who had his clearing attempt held in at the blue line by Luke Glendening.
After making his move up the boards, Raddysh continued forward and went straight to the Minnesota net, where he jumped on a rebound off a shot from Glendening and beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a backhand to give Tampa Bay the 1-0 lead.
With the weight of that first goal off his shoulders, Raddysh was right back up in the play and made it a 2-0 game just 2:29 later.
Moving up the right boards once again, Raddysh took a pass from Conor Sheary and drove towards the Minnesota net. With a little shot fake, Raddysh got Fleury to drop down into the butterfly before quickly shifting behind the net and scoring on a wraparound to double the Lightning lead.
The Bolts outshot the Wild 13-9 in the second period and went into the third period with a 2-0 lead before Victor Hedman made it a 3-0 game just two minutes into the final frame.
With Nic Petan in the penalty box for hooking, Hedman took a pass at the point from Nikita Kucherov and hammered a heavy slap shot through a ton of traffic that beat Fleury and gave the Lightning a three-goal lead with 18 minutes remaining in regulation.
Former Bolts defenseman Zach Bogosian spoiled the shutout for Andrei Vasilevskiy when he scored with 4:25 remaining, but that would go down as the lone goal for Minnesota. Brandon Hagel added an empty-net goal at the 19:19 mark to make it a 4-1 game with his 11th goal of the season, snapping an 18-game goalless drought.
Declan Carlile was called up from the Syracuse Crunch and made his NHL debut on the Lightning back end. Vasilevskiy finished the night with 22 saves on 23 shots against for his third win of the season.
Bolts by the Numbers
- Darren Raddysh scored his first two goals of the season in a span of 2:29 and is up to 12 points on the season (2-10—12).
- Nikita Kucherov recorded one assist and is tied with Nathan MacKinnon for the most points in the NHL with 64. Kucherov has scored 27 goals and added 37 assists in 39 games.
- Kucherov’s 64 points set a franchise record for the most points recorded by a Lightning player prior to their 40th game of a season. Kucherov held the previous record with 63 points in 39 games in 2018-19.
- Kucherov is one of just four active players to record 64 points prior to their 40th game of a season, joining Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid.
- Declan Carlile skated in his first career NHL game and logged 11:27 time on ice with a +1 rating, one hit and two blocked shots.
- Calvin de Haan fired a career-high seven shots on goal.
Bolts Quotes
- Jon Cooper on scoring from defensemen: “We’ve got to generate a little bit more offense, especially from the back end. That was in our game plan tonight and it worked out well for us.”
- Darren Raddysh: “We’ve kind of been struggling to get goals on the back end and to get two tonight was awesome. We’ve just got to make sure we build off that and get ready for Boston on Saturday.”
- Jon Cooper on Declan Carlile’s debut: “The kid did great. Those are really exciting times for everyone when somebody gets to play in their first NHL game…I’ve coached damn near 800 of these games and he’s played in one and we both have the same amount of wins in this building, so he’s got something on me.”
- Declan Carlile: “It was awesome. They booked it. They didn’t know (if I was going to play) obviously. We didn’t know. My dad’s not one to do that stuff because he doesn’t want to jinx anything. But I’m happy they were able to get here. It means a ton to me. They were with me every step of the way. Obviously undrafted and went to school and didn’t really know where I’d end up. Now I’m here, so it’s just a full circle moment.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
- Darren Raddysh
- Victor Hedman
- Declan Carlile
Lightning Look Ahead
- Saturday, January 6 at Boston Bruins, 7 p.m. ET, TD Garden
- Tuesday, January 9 vs. Los Angeles Kings, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
- Thursday, January 11 vs. New Jersey Devils, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
