Behind the Scenes: Bolts defeat the Blue Jackets on the road
The Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2 on Saturday night at Nationwide Arena to get back in the win column after dropping the opening two games of a four-game road trip.
Nick Paul’s power-play goal with 4:20 left in the first period gave the Bolts the lead, 1-0. It was also the only goal of the first half.
Following some repairs from the medical staff on the bench, Paul found himself skating on the second unit after taking a high stick from Kent Johnson and earning Tampa Bay a four-minute power play. After Brandon Hagel’s shot went wide, Paul positioned himself in the gap and swiftly scored his 14th goal of the season by roofing a follow-up into the upper right corner. Darren Raddysh assisted on the goal.
With a purpose, the Lightning opened the middle frame with a 2-0 lead thanks to a goal from Anthony Cirelli, his 11th of the year, just 49 seconds in.
Cirelli received a feed from Paul in the defensive zone and banked the puck off the boards close to the Tampa Bay blue line for Hagel, who patiently awaited an Ivan Provorov hit before sliding the puck to Cirelli in the middle of the ice. Cirelli overcame Elvis Merzlikins to double the Bolts lead by using his quickness to break free from Cole Sillinger and advance to the backhand.
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The Lightning took a 3-0 lead in the third period as Steven Stamkos scored with his trademark one-timer on a power play, his 22nd goal of the year. Victor Hedman received a pass from Nikita Kucherov to the point, and the large defenseman then sent the puck out for Steven Stamkos, who scored his 207th career power-play goal to make the score 3-0.
After goals by Boone Jenner at 12:22 and 15:50 in the last frame, Columbus pulled within one late in the third period. However, Tampa Bay responded when Hagel found the back of the empty net with less than a minute left to seal the 4-2 triumph. Both Kucherov and Cirelli received assists on the game’s winning goal.
– Nick Paul scored his 14th goal of the year to start the game, and he added an assist in the second frame to record his eighth multi-point performance of the year. Paul now has seven power-play goals this season, which is a career high and ties him with Brayden Point for third most on the team behind only Steven Stamkos (12) and Nikita Kucherov (11). Paul is just three points shy of matching his career-high 32-point seasons from 2021–22 and 2022–23 with his current point total through 53 games (14–15—29).
Anthony Cirelli recorded his sixth multi-point performance of the year with his 11th goal and one assist. In five of his past six games (1-6—7) and seven of his last nine (3-8—11), Cirelli has scored points.
Brandon Hagel recorded his 13th multi-point performance of the year with a goal and two assists. Hagel has scored in 12 of his last 14 games (9-9—18), extending his point streak to six games (6-4—10), which is tied for the longest of his career. Out of all NHL skaters, Hagel has the most empty-net goals with five.
Nikita Kucherov had his 27th multi-point game of the season, dished up two assists, and increased his scoring streak to seven games (5-9—14). Along with his 38 power-play points (11-27—38), Kucherov leads all NHL skaters with 89 points (33-56—89).
Steven Stamkos moved within two goals of tying Gordie Howe (209 PPG) for the fourth-most power-play goals ever scored by a player with a single franchise in NHL history with his 207th career power-play goal. With 12 power-play goals this season, Stamkos is tied for third most among all NHL players. Stamkos has scored 48 points this season (22–26–48).
Darren Raddysh (4-16—20) scored his 20th point of the season with one assist. Over the course of his last 13 games, Raddysh has scored 10 points (4-6—10).
Victor Hedman scored 52 points this season (9-43—52) after recording his 43rd assist of the campaign. This season, Hedman has accrued 23 power-play points (4-19—23), which is the third-highest total among all NHL defensemen. In eight of his previous ten games, he has reached the scoresheet (3-10—13).
Andrei Vasilevskiy improved to 17-11-0 on the season with 33 saves on 35 shots. Vasilevskiy is tied for the most wins among all NHL goaltenders with 16 since December 1, having gone 8-2-0 in his past 10 games.
It’s hard to win in this league, said Jon Cooper. As a road club, you walk into an NHL building with two points, take that and move on to the next game. Whatever game you want to dissect, the fact remains that we required these points. We managed to get them. Let’s proceed.
Anthony Cirelli: The game produced a lot of positive effects. It is playing for the entire sixty minutes. They clearly put up a lot of effort and continued to play for the entire 60 minutes. There were a few opportunities we lost that ended up in the goal. It is our responsibility to improve and attempt to play the entire 60-minute game.
Cooper: It was a nice team game for the most part, but there were spurts where we were leaking oil a little. As I mentioned earlier, we gave them a little life, halfway through the third there. We pay a heavy price that we really shouldn’t have had to. On that, they win. The NHL is this. There are good players on all teams, and they can get you. However, there was a significant objective for us to hold on to, and as I mentioned, Vasy supported us when we needed it.
