In Tampa, Corey Perry hit for his 400th career NHL goal on Wednesday night to help the Lightning defeat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-3. 
“It’s exciting. It’s a great personal accomplishment,” Perry said. “But I have to give a lot of credit to the guys I played with in the past and the guys here. I never thought growing up that I would hit 400 goals in the NHL.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves in the Lightning win.
Connor McDavid hit a double, and Zach Hyman added as single marker for the Oilers in the loss.
“We had a chance to win that game, we gave up 23 shots on net,” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “Were there some breakdowns that we can be better at as a team? Yes, there were. But we were in a one-goal hockey game in a tough environment against the two-time Stanley Cup champions. There was a lot of good in that game as well.”
The Lightning moved to 33-11-6.
“We got the ‘W’, I think that’s the most important thing,” Maroon said. “It wasn’t the prettiest game, but we found a way to get the job done. They are a fast team and they have been playing a lot of hockey the past few weeks, so I thought we did well.”
Nikita Kucherov and Pat Maroon picked up a goal and two points apiece in the win.
“Four hundred goals, that’s [pretty] amazing,” Maroon said. “I’m proud of him. A lot of people can’t say they scored 400 goals in this league. The way he plays the game, how hard he plays, he plays the game the hard way and he scored 400 goals the hard way.”
The Oilers dropped to 28-20-3.
“I liked parts of our game, for sure,” McDavid said. “We generated a lot of chances. I thought we did an all right job of keeping them in check, but they are a great team. They do a lot of really good things and find ways to win. That’s what they did tonight.”
Steven Stamkos also scored for the Lightning, his goal gave Tampa a 2-1 lead in the first period.
“We were fortunate enough to win this game, and we played hard enough to win this game,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said. “But they have a good team. They were coming in having won five of six. This is a rhythm league. To take six days off … we were a little out of sync. I give the guys credit.”
Brayden Point pushed the Lightning advantage to 3-1 in the middle frame.
Mike Smith made 18 saves in the Oilers loss.
“It was an excellent hockey game and there were chances both ways,” Woodcroft said. “We hit a post at the end of the game that could have tied it up. But the compete and effort on our team’s part was there. One bounce here or there. It didn’t go our way tonight.”
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