In Tampa Saturday, the Lightning broke out the offense in an 8-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Bolts went 4-for-7 on the power play to key the outburst.
“It was nice for the power play to score, first and foremost,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Could we shoot more pucks? We definitely can. … But whether you get one or you get eight the goal is to win the game.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves to pick up the win.
Brayden Point struck twice for the Bolts.
“Sometimes the pucks don’t go in, sometimes the goalie makes good saves on you,” Point said. “But tonight, it was nice to see the puck go in. For a lot of guys, hopefully this will build confidence.”
J.T. Miller, Nikita Kucherov, Yanni Gourde, Alex Killorn, Victor Hedman, and Cedric Paquette scored single markers for the Bolts.
After falling behind 2-0 the Jackets tied it up but the Lightning rolled through the game on the power play.
“It’s just a kick in the teeth … the fourth goal, as far as the bad bounce,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. “We found our game, had them on their heels a bit. The fourth one hurts and then we couldn’t stop their power play.”
Josh Anderson and Oliver Bjorkstrand scored for the Jackets.
“We don’t handle momentum swings well when they are going against us,” Blue Jackets forward Nick Foligno said. “We needed something good to happen, but sometimes it’s not going happen right away. We just weren’t patient enough tonight to wait for it to come to us, because we had the tables turned in the second and then you see what a good team does when they smell blood.”
[WATCH: All Blue Jackets vs. Lightning highlights]
Sergei Bobrovsky made 23saves in the loss.
“You’re going to have bad games during the year, but it’s definitely no excuse to have a bad game. We weren’t good enough tonight. So we’ve got to learn from our mistakes and not do it again,” the Blue Jackets’ Oliver Bjorkstrand said after the loss.
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