In Tampa Saturday night, the Anaheim Ducks managed to rebound from their drubbing in Sunrise to the Florida Panthers and defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1.
Rickard Rakell struck for two goals and Brandon Montour and Hampus Lindholmadded markers in the win.
The defense was solid as well as they held the Bolts’ Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov scoreless for the first time this season.
“It’s great when you are on [the streak],” Stamkos said. “It’s not the end of the world, we’ll hopefully start another one next game. They have a lot of smart, big, strong, heavy players and they got the lead on us and did a good job of clogging it up and it was tough for our skill guys to make plays.”
John Gibson made 31 saves for the win as the Ducks improved to 5-4-1.
“Those guys are as good as they get in the League right now,” Ryan Getzlaf (three assists on the night) said. “We were paying attention to them. Our penalty kill did a great job to help stagnate that, and obviously our goaltender was pretty good.”
Chris Kunitz scored the lone goal for the Lightning.
“[Stamkos and Kucherov] don’t like and don’t want to be impeded,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “They like the freedom to skate, and you have to get inside and check them. The biggest thing is to keep them out of your zone and force them to play defense. That way they are 200 feet away from their net.”
[WATCH: All Ducks vs. Lightning highlights]
Peter Budaj made 17 saves in taking the loss.
“It was a bad hockey game. There were whistles, offsides, pucks out of play … there was zero flow. We get power plays, do zero with them, and they didn’t even generate momentum for us, they get two power plays and scored on both of them.” Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said after his dropped to 9-2-1.
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