In Tampa, the Lightning made short work of their game with the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday night.
Tampa Bay scored three goals before the game was five minutes old.
“I just like that tonight we jumped on them early and kind of set the tone for the game after that,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “You talk about the next shift after a goal and a lot of times you’re thinking, make sure we have a strong shift, don’t give anything up, but if you can start adding offense to that and score multiple goals it really puts a team on their heels.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made all of 15 saves for the win.
The Bolts had a 4-0 lead before Anthony Mantha scored the lone Wings goal in the loss.
“We have to make sure that we play way better than we did tonight,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We can’t give up the easy chances that we gave up early. I thought we left Thomas Greiss out to dry.”
Victor Hedman, Anthony Cirelli and Ryan McDonagh were the early strikers for Tampa.
“I think we’ve done a good job of building in each game,” Cirelli said. “We had a lot of practice days early on and I think we did a good job in tuning up our game in those practices. We have a lot of games coming up here, so it’s good to get into a rhythm.”
Brayden Point pushed the lead to 4-0 in the middle frame and Alex Killorn added a goal midway through the second period.
“It’s part of our DNA,” Cooper said. “When we have the puck we have five guys on offense, and when we don’t it’s five guys on defense. That’s how we look at it. It’s a tough league to score in, so you need everyone to contribute.”
Detroit has lost seven straight.
“They looked like they’ve been out for two weeks,” Blashill said. “That was a concern inserting all four guys back in the lineup. It’s hard to get game-ready when you haven’t played or practiced at that level in multiple weeks. But on the other side of it, we haven’t won in a while, so why wouldn’t you put them in?”
Thomas Greiss, got the start for Detroit and yielded three goals and made just three saves before getting the hook.
“We left [Greiss] out to dry there,” Red Wings’ Luke Glendening said. “Turned pucks over and weren’t in the right spots. Spot a team like that a couple of goals early and it puts you in a tough spot.”
Calvin Pickard made 17 saves on 19 shots in a long mop up role.
“I think every guy in here is frustrated with the way we’ve been playing and sometimes with the effort we’ve been giving,” Glendening said. “As a group we have to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we’re doing. I have to do a better job. We all have to do a better job.”
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