In Tampa, Brayden Point scored early in the third period for the Lightning to give them a 3-1 lead over the visiting Washington Capitals on Monday night.
Tampa needed that goal, as the Caps’ Conor Sheary scored just past the midway point to cut the lead to 3-2, and make the final eight minutes more interesting.
“There’s still things we need to do better,” Point said. “It’s nice to get a couple of wins in a row here, especially at home.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves, and preserved the lead for a 3-2 win to Tampa.
The loss handed the Caps their first regulation loss of the season, the4y dropped to 5-1-3.
“It’s frustrating. That’s our team, we set the bar high,” Washington’s Lars Eller said. “There’s no excuses. We hate losing, and it’s an empty feeling for us right now. … [Tampa Bay is] one of the best teams in the League. Tough challenge for us, and at the end of the day, we didn’t get two points, but lots of positives also, Leason getting his first goal and stuff.”
Brett Leason opened the scoring in the game to give Washington a 1-0 lead in the opening frame.
“Their goalie played well,” Washingon head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I like the game we played, we did a lot of good things. It’s difficult because it’s a game you feel you come out the right way and doing the right thing, and you’re fighting some things that happen throughout the course of the game. Tough. It’s a tough loss.”
Tampa tied the game in the second period off a goal from Alex Killorn.
“You just don’t want to be in positions to chase games, and he prevented us from doing that,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said of Vasilevskiy’s performance. “We scored right after that. Instead of it being 2-0, it’s 1-1, and it’s all because of the timeliness of that save.”
Tampa Bay improved to 5-3-1 with the win.
Anthony Cirelli, who had a goal and three points on the night put the Lightning ahead, 2-1, at 8:40 of the middle frame.
“I think we’re just building each and every game and trying to get better in practice,” Cirelli said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’re going in the right direction.”
Vitek Vanecek made 23 saves for the Caps in the loss.
“I think for the most part it was a pretty good 60-minute game,” Sheary said. “We gave them a 5-on-3, and they were able to get some momentum off that, but other than that, I thought we worked hard and got our chances. They were opportunistic with theirs.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.