In Tampa, the Lightning continued to haunt the Carolina Hurricanes in a 3-1 decision on Thursday night.
The Bolts posted three straight goals after Brett Pesce has staked the Canes to an early, 1-0, lead.
“It’s unfortunate we didn’t get results,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Over the four games, for the most part, it could’ve went either way in pretty much every game. Obviously, there are some areas we’ve got to shore up and get better.”
Curtis McElhinney made 31 saves to get the win.
“I don’t know if we gave out three stars,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said. “But he should’ve been star one, two and three.”
Mikhail Sergachev pulled the Lightning even in the middle frame with a goal.
Yanni Gourde‘s goal in the third period gave Tampa Bay the lead for good.
“Short season and playing against these guys a lot … these points are massive,” Gourde said. “So it’s great to finish this with two points tonight.”
Carolina dropped to 12-6-1.
“I think the biggest thing is that we’ve got to play a 60-minute game,” Pesce said. “A team like this, they’re so good if you take a breath out there for a shift or two shifts, they are going to capitalize or at least get all the momentum.”
Barclay Goodrow added an empty-net goal to ice the game with less than two minutes remaining on the clock.
“We see these guys a lot, they know us, we know them, and it feels like a playoff game out there,” Gourde said. “Obviously, we needed a better game tonight, but we were fortunate enough to come up with the win because McElhinney was amazing in the net.”
James Reimer made 19 save in the loss.
“We were the better team tonight,” Brind’Amour said. “This might’ve been our best game overall against them. We got a lot of Grade As and didn’t give up much hardly. I was really, really happy. But unfortunately, that’s hockey. You get some bad bounces and things don’t go your way. “
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