The Tampa Bay Lightning took out their frustrations on the Blue Jackets in Columbus, on Tuesday night.
The Lightning scored early and often in a 7-2 win.
After being swept by the New York Rangers in a home and home series, the Bolts were looking for some success.
Ondrej Palat hit for a pair of goals for Tampa to give them a 2-0 lead in the first period; Corey Perry added a third strike to send the game to the middle frame with the Bolts up, 3-0.
“It’s nice to get a win again,” Palat said. “We had a little skid there, three games, but I thought before we played well, but that’s going to happen during the season.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves in the Tampa win.
Gustav Nyquist and Dean Kukan were the Blue Jackets’ scorers.
The Lightning improved to 22-8-5.
“We got some bounces tonight, which was huge,” Tampa’s Brayden Point said. “That’s something we haven’t gotten a ton of lately or this year, and to see a couple of pucks bounce on the guys’ sticks was nice.”
The Blue Jackets dropped to 15-15-1.
“We are in it right now and nobody feels sorry for us,” Columbus head coach Brad Larsen said. “We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ll practice again and play again. After that we will play again.
“I go back to a lot of guys that are playing told me they can play at this level and want to play big minutes at this level. Now is the time to show it.”
Point gave the Lighting a 4-1 lead in the second period.
“Our team game was better,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Obviously, it helped to get out to the lead we got out to in the beginning. We played with a little bit of confidence today, so it was good.”
Pat Maroon (power play) scored in the second period, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Alex Killorn added strikes in the third period for Tampa.
Joonas Korpisalo made 29 saves in the Columbus loss, it was his first game after the L’s COVID19 protocol.
“I honestly felt pretty good when the game started,” he said. “Letting in seven goals, that’s embarrassing, the little details, I didn’t do too well today.”
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