In Tampa, a three-goal third period buried the visiting Philadelphia Flyers in a 5-2 loss to the Lightning on Tuesday night.
Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov each hit for doubles and three points in the Tampa win.
“This was big, especially when you go the way we were going it was tough,” Killorn said. “To be at home and win, that’s a good feeling. This is just the first step. We need to start building momentum. This was kind of a litmus-test game, but we want to keep going the right way.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves in the win.
The Lightning moved to 38-21-5 with the win and ended their five-gamer schneid.
The Flyers took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a goal from Morgan Frost.
“I thought our 5-on-5 play for a lot of the night was good,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “You can’t take six penalties. You can’t take three in the first period, most of them in the offensive zone.
“But a lot of our checking, our 5-on-5 play for a lot of the game, was good. We had a number of good chances. We just can’t score.”
Newcomer, Brendan Lemieux hit for a goal in the second period after the game was already out of hand at 4-1.
The Flyers dropped to 24-29-11.
Killorn tied it, 1-1, off the power play in the opening period with his first of the game.
Tampa then scored three straight in the second period for the 4-1 lead.
Kucherov hit for his first, off the power play, and a 2-1 advantage to Tampa.
“The power play was on tonight,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “But to rebound after going down 1-0, that was big for me. The boys took it home after that.”
Ross Colton then pushed the lead to 3-1.
“It was nice to gel a little bit tonight,” Colton said. “We’re trying to form an identity for what our line (Colton, Jeannot, Nicholas Paul) is going to be. It’s our second or third game together.
“On that goal I give credit to ‘Paulie’ and Tanner, who cycled the puck well and Tanner kind of gift-wrapped it for me to tap in.”
Killorn made it 4-1 for Tampa.
Kucherov scored, again on the power play, in the third for the 5-2 final.
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Carter Hart made 34 saves in the loss.
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