GAME RECAP: Lightning 7, Oilers 4

EDMONTON, AB – The streak has been struck down.

Forward Steven Stamkos recorded four goals, while netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy made an impressive 53 saves for the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night in a 7-4 victory at Rogers Place that put an end to the Edmonton Oilers' league-leading win streak at eight games.

The Oilers came back from a two-goal deficit in the second period to take the lead off a shorthanded goal from Darnell Nurse and power-play tallies from Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman, but the Lightning scored three straight of their own and added two empty-netters in the final 20 minutes to hand Edmonton their first defeat since Nov. 22.

"Disappointed not to get the two points," Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored his seventh goal of the season in the loss, said post-game. "I thought we worked all game and they obviously have some skilled players that when they get opportunities, they can make them count."

Edmonton registered a club-record 57 shots on goal, but Vasilevskiy's exceptional goaltending was a major factor in the Russian outduelling Stuart Skinner, who made 19 stops on 24 shots, and spelling an end to Edmonton's eight-game winning run.

"He was obviously feeling it tonight, so I thought for the most part we played a solid game, but we gave up a couple too many goals," Leon Draisaitl said. "I thought we were the better team and probably deserved to win, but it's obviously not the way the league works."

Evan Bouchard and McDavid each stretched their respective point streaks to 13 and 10 games with multi-point nights, while Hyman was able to build on his team-leading goal total by recording his 17th of the campaign in the defeat.

The Oilers fall to 13-13-1 and wrap up a lengthy six-game homestand on Saturday night against the Florida Panthers at Rogers Place.

FIRST PERIOD

After it took the Oilers almost two periods to take their first penalty on Tuesday against the Blackhawks, an early tripping call for Leon Draisaitl in the first minute tonight provided the Bolts an early spark.

Tampa Bay went up 1-0 on their first power play just 52 seconds into regulation when they benefitted from the extra ice left behind when Derek Ryan tried to retrieve a new stick from the bench by setting up Stamkos in the left circle for a historic one-timer that beat Stuart Skinner.

Stamkos became only the 20th player in NHL history to reach 200 career power-play goals with the early tally that marked only Edmonton's second PPG against in their last 27 penalty kills. In comparison to Stamkos, Draisaitl, who leads the Oilers all-time in career power-play goals, has 133 on the man advantage.

Before reaching the eight-minute mark, the Lightning would take a two-goal lead courtesy of Tyler Motte's back-handed effort that came off a rebound from Darren Raddysh's initial shot. But the Oilers would find their game over the final 10 minutes of the first period, finishing with a 15-7 shot advantage before coming into full form on the other side of the intermission.

SECOND PERIOD

This is a special team with 'special teams' you simply can never count out.

It was looking like a mirror image of the start the Oilers had in the opening period when Warren Foegele was called for hooking on Brayden Point just 1:07 into the middle frame, setting up another early Lightning power play. But a good stick from Derek Ryan, who didn't have one on Tampa Bay's first power-play goal, helped create the turnover that sent the Oilers up the ice on a shorthanded counterattack.

Ryan sauced it to Nugent-Hopkins, who picked out Darnell Nurse flying up the ice with a floated pass of his own that sent the defenceman in alone to score his fifth-career shorthanded goal under the right arm of Vasilevskiy less than a minute-and-a-half into the new stanza.

Nurse now has five goals on the season, and every single one of them has got Edmonton on the scoreboard in those respective games.

The Oilers would soon get another shot to flex their high-flying power play, and rarely ever do the Blue & Orange come up with an unassisted goal on the man advantage.

Draisaitl was waved out of an offensive-zone draw, leading to Connor McDavid coming down from the blueline to take the ensuing faceoff that was kicked backwards by Tampa Bay's Nick Paul to his defencemen.

The Oilers captain quickly capitalized on a bouncing puck beneath the stick of Anthony Cirelli by batting it over the right shoulder of an unsuspecting Vasilevskiy for his 11th goal of the campaign, which stretched McDavid's point streak to 11 games where he's scored seven goals and 19 assists – the most in the NHL over that span.

The Oilers weren't done there, and neither was Evan Bouchard when you consider the exceptional point streak the defenceman has assembled.

Another power-play opportunity for Edmonton came under two minutes later, where Bouchard teed up a blast from the blueline that found its way into the back of the Lightning net off Zach Hyman at the far post to give the Oilers a 3-2 lead with 9:58 left in the middle frame. Bouchard's assist makes it 13 straight games for the Oakville, Ont. product with a point, totalling five goals and 14 assists.

But just as Edmonton isn't a team you want to let back into a game, neither are the winners of two Stanley Cups in the last three seasons.

THIRD PERIOD

The Oilers would've hoped for a quiet final 20 minutes to see out their ninth consecutive win, but it was Stamkos striking twice as part of a five-goal third period for Tampa Bay to see Edmonton's streak to its conclusion.

The elite goal-scoring talent batted a puck short side past Skinner at 13:12 of the final frame before another one of the NHL's elite in Nikita Kucherov snuck the go-ahead goal under the Oilers netminder with over eight minutes left in regulation.

"Obviously don't feel good about them," Skinner said of the two goals. "The puck was bobbling on Kuch's. I went for it and kind of at that exact time, he pulled it and put it in. It obviously doesn't look great, and then after that, Stammer came in and I'm not going to make any excuses, so move on and work forward."

Stamkos' deceiving wrist shot from inside the Oilers blueline 1:15 later would find its way into the top corner of Skinner's net to give No. 91 his hat-trick goal and lift Tampa Bay to a 5-3 lead with just under six minutes for Edmonton to mount another comeback.

After Nugent-Hopkins scored on a rebound with the net empty to five the Oilers life in the late stages of the game, Cirelli and Stamkos would seal the Bolts' victory with empty-net tallies.

"Eight times out of ten, nine times out of ten, you probably win that game," Draisaitl said. "Obviously they're an experienced team and they capitalized in the third, so sometimes you got to tip your cap."

PARTING WORDS

Skinner on taking ownership of the loss and his teammates keeping sight of the positives from their eight-game win streak:

"I think the guys played a heck of a game. I don't think anybody in this room should be upset except for me, to be honest. I think that I ended up kind of losing us the game, and that's something that I'll take on and I'll better for it. But I think these guys in here should all be very happy with how they played. They were fantastic."

"I think you got to take ownership when you need to. I know obviously as a goalie, I have opportunities to help us win games and sometimes, I end up losing the game for the guys. It's one of those roles and I picked that role because I love it, so I'm going to keep on loving that and this is only going to make me better."

Skinner on going against Vasilevskiy:

"I respect a lot about him as a goalie. He's obviously the best in the world at the game as a goalie right now, and he's so athletic; he competes so hard. I think he's able to make the easy saves. He's really good at making the difficult saves too, but yeah, his flexibility and his capability to compete, it's quite impressive to see, especially for a guy his size."

Coach Knoblauch on Skinner's comments about ownership:

"I hear a guy who cares about putting out 100 percent effort every time he hits the ice, whether it's games or practices. I know he came up big in the second period with some big saves. I know we wasn't tested very much, but I know at the end of the second period he came up with a huge save and maintained the one-goal lead going into the third period. There's a couple that he probably wants back in the third period, but yeah, all our guys have had bad games and we'll put them behind us."