Perry scores 400th NHL goal, Lightning hold off McDavid, Oilers

TAMPA --Corey Perry scored his 400th NHL goal, and the Tampa Bay Lightning held on to defeat the Edmonton Oilers 5-3 at Amalie Arena on Wednesday.

Perry, Nikita Kucherov and Pat Maroon each had a goal and an assist for the Lightning (33-11-6), who have won three straight. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves.
"It's exciting. It's a great personal accomplishment," Perry said. "But I have to give a lot of credit to the guys I played with in the past and the guys here. I never thought growing up that I would hit 400 goals in the NHL."

Tampa Bay was playing its first game since a 6-3 win against the New Jersey Devils on Feb. 15.
"We were fortunate enough to win this game, and we played hard enough to win this game," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "But they have a good team. They were coming in having won five of six. This is a rhythm league. To take six days off ... we were a little out of sync. I give the guys credit."
Connor McDavid had two goals, Zach Hyman scored for the fifth straight game, and Leon Draisaitl had three assists for the Oilers (28-20-3), who have lost consecutive games after winning five straight. Mike Smith made 18 saves.
"We had a chance to win that game, we gave up 23 shots on net," Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. "Were there some breakdowns that we can be better at as a team? Yes, there were. But we were in a one-goal hockey game in a tough environment against the two-time Stanley Cup champions. There was a lot of good in that game as well."

Perry gave the Lightning a 4-1 lead at 15:24 of the second period when he redirected a shot from Mikhail Sergachev at the top of the crease. He is the 103rd player in NHL history, and ninth active, to score 400 goals.
"Four hundred goals, that's [pretty] amazing," Maroon said. "I'm proud of him. A lot of people can't say they scored 400 goals in this league. The way he plays the game, how hard he plays, he plays the game the hard way and he scored 400 goals the hard way."
Maroon gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 11:57 of the first period after his shot deflected off Oilers forward Devin Shore.
"We got the 'W', I think that's the most important thing," Maroon said. "It wasn't the prettiest game, but we found a way to get the job done. They are a fast team and they have been playing a lot of hockey the past few weeks, so I thought we did well."
McDavid tied it 1-1 at 18:10 with a power-play goal.
"I liked parts of our game, for sure," McDavid said. "We generated a lot of chances. I thought we did an all right job of keeping them in check, but they are a great team. They do a lot of really good things and find ways to win. That's what they did tonight."
Steven Stamkos made it 2-1 at 19:45 with a shot from the left circle.

Brayden Point extended the lead to a 3-1 at 10:48 of the second when he poked the puck past Smith from in close.
Hyman cut it to 4-2 at 17:12, beating Vasilevskiy on a breakaway with the backhand.
McDavid's second goal made it 4-3 at 9:39 of the third period, but Kucherov scored an empty-net goal at 19:56 for the 5-3 final.
"It was an excellent hockey game and there were chances both ways," Woodcroft said. "We hit a post at the end of the game that could have tied it up. But the compete and effort on our team's part was there. One bounce here or there. It didn't go our way tonight."
NOTES:Perry has scored 14 goals with the Lightning, nine with the Montreal Canadiens, five with the Dallas Stars and 372 with the Anaheim Ducks. … Hyman has scored eight points (five goals, three assists) in a five-game point streak. ... Point has scored six points (three goals, three assists) during a five-game point streak. ... Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played in his 700th NHL game. He had five shots on goal and was minus-3. ... McDavid has scored a goal in six straight road games. … The game featured the past five Art Ross Trophy winners, given to the NHL scoring leader (McDavid, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2020-21; Draisaitl, 2019-20; Kucherov, 2018-19). The last game to feature the previous five winners was Game 5 of the 2001 Eastern Conference Final, when the New Jersey Devils defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, who had forwards Jaromir Jagr (1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-00 and 2000-01) and Mario Lemieux (1996-97).