In Tampa, Nikita Kucherov and Tanner Jeannot scored in the second period on Wednesday night to help give the Lightning a 3-0 lead over the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.
“We know what we need to do to be successful, and we’ve been working on being smarter with the puck in the neutral zone,” Jeannot said. “I think we’ve done a good job of that the past two games. [Vasilevskiy] has looked like the best goalie in the world. We just have to keep building our game and help him out.”
“It’s been great; that’s what you’re looking for in your team, realizing that you’re not going to have to score your way out to win games and if you play some responsible defense, good things are going to happen,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said of the past two games. And when we break down, the big guy’s (Vasilevskiy) back there to bail us out.”
Kucherov hit for his goal at 8:31, off the power play to extend the Lightning lead to 2-0, Jeannot scored at 17:04 of the middle frame to make it 3-0.
Anthony Cirelli put Tampa up, 1-0, in the first stanza on a power play strike at 5:56.
“I thought we had opportunities, especially in the 1st period, to put pucks at the net and we didn’t,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’re looking for lateral plays and they never materialized. We’re trying to encourage them to put the puck at the net more.”
The Lightning held the shutout active until Jake Guentzel scored with 53 seconds left in the game clock for the 3-01 final.
“We waited the first period, the first ten minutes to start playing our game,” Pittsburgh center Evgeni Malkin said. “Tonight they scored three goals, and then we started playing our game. We need everyone to start right away. The puck drops at 7:10 and we should start playing. In the third period, we played with more pressure and started to shoot more.”
The Penguins dropped to s 11-11-3 off their third straight loss.
“I don’t think we’re necessarily trying to be too cute, if anything maybe a little hesitant,” Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby said. “We’ve got to play on our toes a little more.
Tristan Jarry made 24 saves in the loss.
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