Tampa wins sixth straight

In Nashville, the thing to keep in mind is, the Predators held a 1-0 lead on Tuesday night in their game with the Tampa Lightning.

Good times.

The Lightning ended that with three goals in the first period and three more in the third to take a6-1 win.

Steven Stamkos and Mathieu Joseph scored a pair of goals each in the win.

“This group knows what it takes to win,” Stamkos said. “I thought we were very comfortable in whatever situation we were put in. They came out with a game plan to try to be really physical. We matched that and just went from there. Whether it’s a physical game, a tight-checking game, a special-teams game, I think we’re well-equipped to handle all those situations.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves. for the win.

“They had a good game plan against us last time, so we made some adjustments (on the power play),” Stamkos said. “Nice to see it go in. It kind of sparked us a little bit early and to get a couple late is good for the confidence. We knew without [Nikita Kucherov] this year it’s going to be a little bit of a work in progress, but tonight it was a difference-maker for us.”

Rocco Grimaldi gave the Preds the early lead with his goal.

“I thought we had some good looks,” Nashville head coach John Hynes said. “I think some of the execution came in on the power play as the game went on. I thought the first power play we had some good looks. [Roman Josi] ripped one off the post. As the game went on, we didn’t execute as well as we needed to in that particular area.

Yanni Gourde and Ondrej Palat scored single markers for the Bolts.

“We’re doing pretty good,” Gourde said. “Obviously, we want to get better each game. There are things we work on. We’re relentless and this group, we want to get better. That’s really the focus.”Juuse Saros made 24 saves in the loss.

“Tonight we gave ourselves a chance,” Hynes said. “Unfortunately special teams, they went 3-for-5 on the power play. We went 0-for-4 and took a penalty on one of them. I thought the special teams was a big difference in the game. It’s as we continue to talk about, it’s finding that balance with the 5-on-5. We took a step with that today versus [Monday], but then the special teams weren’t as good. That was the biggest difference in the game.”