In Tampa, the Lightning found some semblance of a complete game on Thursday night, albeit against the Arizona Coyotes, in a 4-1 win.
Tampa scored three goals in the first period to put the game away.
“We did what we had to do,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Was it a perfect game for us? By no means, but when you have a desperate team like Arizona, just getting the lead was imperative for us and the guys did what they had to do. We’ll just take the two points and move on.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves for Tampa in the win.
Lawson Crouse scored Arizona’s only goal.
“I think we’re all frustrated,” Coyotes head coach Andre Tourigny said. “It’s a good sign, a sign we care. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve been frustrated before. We want to win. We’re a proud team.
“I thought we started the game real well, and the first real mistake we made wound up in our net. Then we made another mistake and we paid for it.”
Alex Killorn scored of the first period goals to give the Bolts a 2-0 lead.
“I think we were fortunate enough to get the quick lead,” Killorn said. “It was probably not our best second and third period. I think maybe we were relying a little bit too much on that lead. There’s certain things we could do better.”
Steve Stamkos finished the scoring for the 3-0 lead.
Alex Barre-Boulet pushed the lead to 4-0 in the middle frame.
After Arizona scored to make it 4-1 in the third, Andrej Sustr added a goal late for the 5-1 final.
Ivan Prosvetov made 23 saves in the Coyotes loss.
“We’ve got to tough it out,” Crouse said. “It’s up to us. We need the will to win. No one feels sorry for us. It’s good to have a back to back [at the Washington Capitals on Friday]. We don’t have a day or two to dwell on it. Everyone’s a little bit frustrated. We have to stick to it, put this one behind us and move on.”
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