In Tampa, the Los Angeles Kings could not hold a lead on Tuesday night. They surrendered a 2-0 and 3-2 lead to the Lightning and eventually lost in the skills competition, 4-3.
Jeff Carter and Kyle Clifford staked the Kings to an early 2-0 lead but the Lightning rallied.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 38 saves in win – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Overall great performance by our team,” Kings defenseman Sean Walker said. “It’s tough blowing a lead there a couple of times, but I think overall you look at the game and I think we played great. There’s lot of opportunities we probably could’ve scored there again, but give credit to them, they’ve got a great goalie.”
Steve Stamkos and Alex Killorn tied the game with strikes in the first period.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 38 saves in the win.
“As a team they don’t give you much, so it’s a bit of a waiting game,” Lightning defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “[Quick] is a goalie that can make it tough on you to score goals, we just had to stick with it until the end and we finally got one to go through on the 6-on-5. It was a great shot by [Kucherov] to put that in.”
Dustin Brown scored in the third period to regain the Kings advantage.
“[Losing] shootouts … it is what it is. I think we played a really good game, but it just happens,” Brown said. “They find a face-off goal, it’s not too often a guy wins it and it’s a one-timer from the middle of the ice, but they have the ability and put it in our net.”
Nikita Kucherov tied the game to force the extra session and shootout.
Stamkos had the deciding goal in the skills competition.
[WATCH: All Kings vs. Lightning highlights]
Jonathan Quick made 35 saves in the loss.
“There were a lot of ups and downs,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “[The Lightning] are a very creative, quick-attacking team. I think they got the best of us in some situations, but we fought back and worked our way to a lead with a big power-play goal. Disappointed at the end that we couldn’t close it out, but fairly good effort.”
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