In Tampa, the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves in a 5-0 shutout of the Dallas Stars on Saturday night.
“It feels like he’s locked in all the time, to be honest with you,” the Lightning’s Steven Stamkos (goal) said. “That’s how amazing he is. We just try to make it as easy for him as we can, but he’s the best goalie in the world for a reason, and he’s showing it.”
Tampa improved to 14-4-1.
Anthony Cirelli had a goal and two points in the win.
The Stars are on a 2-5-3 stinker of a run.
“We’ll turn it around,” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. “We’ve had a bad 10-game segment. We’ve lost some games we should’ve won. We certainly didn’t deserve to win tonight. When you lose games you played well enough to win, it’s going to bite you.”
Ondrej Palat potted the game’s first goal for a 1-0 lead for Tampa.
“It’s certainly not the feeling that it was the last time we played them,” Stamkos said. “It’s a different year. As much as people want to make a storyline about it, it’s a game, and once both teams get on the ice they want to win.”
Brayden Point and Pat Maroon also scored for the Lightning.
“We can’t take six penalties,” Cooper said. “That was unfortunate, but to do what we did with the penalty kill was outstanding. Anytime you take six penalties and you come out of it 1-0 with a shorty, it’s a good sign.”
Anton Khudobin got the start and surrendered all five goals to the Bolts, he made 12 saves before getting the hook early in the third period.
“I think overall we’re just not in sync enough at times,” Dallas’ Andrew Cogliano said. “Our 5-on-5 play was really good tonight. We wanted to shore up a few things and we held them to not too many scoring chances 5-on-5. But our special teams were the problem tonight. It seems like every game it’s just something different and we’re not putting it together.”
Jake Oettinger made five saves in a mop up role.
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