Game Recap: Lightning 4, Wild 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Darren Raddysh scored two goals for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 4-1 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.

The 27-year-old defenseman entered the game with just one goal (April 5) in 60 career games.

“We’ve been kind of struggling to get goals on the back end, and to get two tonight, that was awesome,” Raddysh said. “But you know, we just got to make sure we build off that.”

Victor Hedman and Brandon Hagel also scored for Tampa Bay (19-16-5), which has won two of three. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.

"Yeah, we got to generate a little bit more offense, especially from the back end,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “And that was in our game plan today, and it worked out well for us.”

Zach Bogosian scored for Minnesota (16-17-4), which has lost four straight. Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 saves and remains one win shy of tying Patrick Roy (551) for second in NHL history.

“I thought tonight we had some looks, but I thought our execution tonight didn’t allow us to play fast, and I thought in particular it was more the second pass out of the zone. We had a lot of pucks in skates, missed passes, bobbled pucks,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “That’s really when you can beat that initial part of the forecheck, and then basically on top of the circles to the red line, our execution in those areas really lacked, and that didn’t allow us to be able to get up and play as fast as we wanted to play and play a more attacking game.”

Raddysh gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 4:31 of the second period, knocking in a rebound with his backhand in front.

Raddysh then made it 2-0 on a wraparound at 7:00.

“I just kind of saw [Conor Sheary] had the puck and just tried to beat my man to the net, and the goalie kind of came out high, so I just tried to throw a little fake, and then I knew once I faked there the wraparound was probably there,” Raddysh said. “Lucky to get that in and pot two tonight.”

Hedman extended the lead to 3-0 with a power-play goal from the high slot at 2:00 of the third period.

Bogosian cut it to 3-1 at 15:35, scoring his first of the season from the top of the right circle, but Hagel scored into an empty net at 19:19 for the 4-1 final.

“Yeah, that’s tough, giving up three goals to a team like that,” Bogosian said. “They’re obviously a good veteran team that is good at controlling leads. For what it is, I thought we competed. I thought we worked and tried to do the right things. We’ve just got to stay connected and make sure that we get a good solid road game [at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday]. The only thing we can do is push forward.”

NOTES: Lightning defenseman Declan Carlile was plus-1 and had two blocked shots in 11:27 of ice time in his NHL debut. ... Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who was named to the 2024 NHL All-Star Game on Thursday, had an assist. He has 64 points (27 goals, 37 assists) in 39 games this season, the most prior to a player's 40th game in Tampa Bay history.