Raw Charge
Summary
Five minutes into the third period in the Tampa Bay Lightning’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights, Nikita Kucherov deflected a pass in his own zone, calmly collected the puck and made his way down the ice on a breakaway. A quick move later, the puck was in the back of the net, the Lightning were up 6-2 and Kucherov had his third point of the night. It was also his 1,137 career regular-season point, tying him atop the Tampa Bay leader board with Steven Stamkos. Another casual three-point night (his 127th, also a team record) for Kucherov as the Lightning took down the top team in the Western Conference. Was it the best game of the year for the Bolts? Probably not, but they took advantage of several Golden Knights mistakes to pick up a victory in their first game on a three-game trip out west. Anthony Cirelli had two goals, Brandon Hagel had a power play goal, while Victor Hedman and John Carlson scored from the blueline. The Bolts were outshot 34-21 and outchanced 34-33 in an entertaining and back-and-forth game, but Andrei Vasilevskiy held the fort, stopping 32 shots and posting a 2.47 GSAx per Natural Stat Trick . At the other end, Carter Hart allowed six goals on 21 shots against as his teammates failed to control the puck in front of him. Tampa Bay has a couple of days off before heading to Colorado and Utah for back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday. We’ll be back with more thoughts on this game later in the afternoon. Game Highlights: