In Vancouver Friday, the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning were looking to change some of their recent fortunes and get something of a winning way started.
Instead, they ran into Bo Horvat who had a goal and two points to help the Canucks to a 4-2 win.
“I was coming through the middle and I was expecting a rim,” Horvat said . “It went off the shaft of Loui [Eriksson’s] stick and then all of a sudden I saw it go off the goaltender and pop right back to me in the slot. I wanted to get there as quick as I could.”
Trailing 2-1 early in the third period, the Bolts got a power play goal from Cory Conacher to tie the game.
But Horvat scored his own power play goal less than four minutes later for the game-winner.
Alexandre Burrows iced the game with an empty-netter.
Ryan Miller made 25 saves for the win.
WATCH: All Lightning vs. Canucks highlights
“We’ve had so many bounces that haven’t gone our way,” Horvat said. “To get one like that, it was kind of a relief off everybody’s shoulders that we are going to start getting bounces here.”
Luca Sbisa and Brandon Sutter also scored for the Canucks.
“It was a statement game after our last performance in Carolina (8-6 loss),” Sbisa said
“It was a pretty solid effort by a depleted group and I feel for the guys,” said Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s a self-inflicted loss is what it is. A couple bad turnovers end up in our net and then a marginal call at best, but a penalty 200 feet from our net and they just get an unreal break. It’s tough to fault the guys and their effort.”
Victor Hedman had the other Bolts goal.
Andrei Vasilevskiy had 20 saves in the loss for Tampa whose woes continue this season; the Lightning have lost four of five and eight ten in their most recent stretch of games.
Injuries continue to plague the Lightning and getting healthy is the first priority.
“You can’t say we didn’t play well. They had 10 scoring chances the whole game and we gave up three goals. You can’t ask our team to do anything better than that,” Cooper said. “Any NHL team will tell you if you give up 10 scoring chances in a game you got a really good chance to win a hockey game, and we didn’t.”
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