Tampa hold off Canucks for 4-3 win Victory ends three-game skid for Tampa

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In Tampa, Nikita Kucherov hit for a double in the Lightning’s 4-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.“This is probably the longest we’re at home, I think we’re home for two weeks,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “I’m not sure how many games we’re playing, but we’ve got to start getting points here before we go back on the road.”

Jonas Johansson made 26 saves in the win. The victory ended a three-game skid for the Lightning.

Nicholas Paul scored at 11:10 of the first to give Tampa a 1-0 lead.

“There’s some good players out there making some good plays,” Paul said. “Right now [the power play] seems to be clicking. We just have to stay consistent.”

Brock Boeser tied the game for the Canucks with 14 seconds of fresh ice used in the second period.

“Loved the battle, hats off to the guys because they competed,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “We’ve just got to clean up the crucial mistakes. … For the overall team effort, the guys played hard until the end.”

“I thought we played a much better game than our last game,” Boeser said. “We were pretty good until we let a few in late in the second there. Small letdowns you can’t have. … Little details we’ve got to clean up.”

With 62 seconds gone in the period, Tyler Myers  struck for a 2-1 lead to the Canucks.

Tampa rallied back with three straight goals, starting with Michael Eyssimont  tying the game, 2-2, at 15:45.

“We’ve been messing around with different line combinations, and nothing has really stuck,” Eyssimont said. “To find some offense with some guys is good. We were strong in our zone and good defense leads to good offense.”

Kucherov then went to work, giving Tampa a 3-2 lead at 16:32  of the second.

“We had to turn the page on what had happened [at the start of the period] and Essiymont’s goal was a big one for us,” Cooper said. “You could see we were coming and after that ‘Kuch’ was huge for us.”

Kucherov then scored what proved to be the game-winner off the power play, at 4:42 of the third for a 4-2 advantage.

J.T. Miller got the Canucks back within one, 4-3, with a goal at 18:11 of the third.

“You’ve got to fall back on your base,” Myers said. “Getting pucks deep and playing at a speed where it’s hard for them to break the puck out. Those are simple things. We were doing those things and we had a couple of breakdowns in our neutral zone.”

Thatcher Demko made 31 saves in the loss.