In Raleigh, the Tampa Bay Lightning broke out of a funk on Tuesday night, as Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves in a 4-0 shut out of the Hurricanes.
The Lightning improved to 43-26-6, and snapped a four-game skid.
“To not give one up, [Vasilevskiy] obviously had something to do with that,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “But it was never like he was under siege at all during the game. That’s how we’ve got to play if we want to do anything in the spring.
“It definitely turned the tables from the last time we were here (6-0 loss on March 5). I thought the guys got rewarded tonight for the way they played.”
After a scoreless first stanza, Steven Stamkos scored in the second period to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
“Just trying to get open there, and [Sergachev] had a good heads-up play and squeaked on through there,” Stamkos said. “It was nice to get on the board. After that, we responded pretty well.”
Brayden Point doubled the advantage to 2-0 in the middle frame, and added a second goal on the night at 12:17 of the third for a 3-0 lead.
“I’ve seen a lot of guys who have been doing that lately,” Point said. “It’s a rebound and I’m just trying to put a puck in there. If it doesn’t bounce off him, maybe it bounces to one of our guys.”
The Hurricanes dropped to 47-17-9.
“Not a lot of spark to our game. Didn’t play it the way we’d like to play it,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It wasn’t like we were giving up a boatload of chances, but we weren’t getting enough to get a lot of emotion in the building.”
Alex Killorn hit an empty net for the 4-0 final.
Pyotr Kochetkov made 17 saves in the loss.
“It’s a hard game because you’re trying to find it, and then you’re trying to come back, too,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said. “We’ve got to figure out where our energy was, and we’ve got to regroup.”
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