Kucherov, Stamkos lead red-hot Lightning over Red Wings
TAMPA, Fla. -- The two hottest players on the hottest team in the NHL continue to play at another level, and Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos each scored -- again -- to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 3-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night at Amalie Arena.
Stamkos scored the game-winning goal on the power play in the third period on an assist from Kucherov with 13:38 left. Both have scored points in all 11 games, matching the Lightning team record to start a season, set by Martin St. Louis in 2009. Tampa Bay as a team is off to its best start in franchise history.
Frans Nielsen scored his third and fourth goals of the season for Detroit.
Brayden Point put the game away with a goal with 2:56 left in the third, getting the puck alone in front of the net and firing a shot past Jimmy Howard for his fifth goal of the season. Detroit answered with a power-play goal from Nielsen with 1:49 left. Detroit, having pulled Howard, got another power play with 1:23 left for a 6-on-4 advantage, but the Lightning held on.
Kucherov tied the game with a power-play goal in the first, and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was in control the rest of the way, winning his eighth straight game and giving the Lightning (9-1-1) its first 6-0-0 start at home. Vasilevskiy finished with 29 saves and has held opponents to four total goals in his last four games.
Both early goals came on Lightning power plays -- Detroit (4-6-1) got a short-handed goal with 5:42 left in the first period, as Nielsen got ahead on a 2-on-1 as defenseman Victor Hedman stumbled, and fired a shot to the top right corner of the net past Vasilevskiy for a 1-0 lead.
The short-handed goal was Detroit's fourth of this season, and the first allowed by the Lightning.
Tampa Bay, which had the NHL's No. 1 power play entering the night, converted on another late in the first period. Detroit was called for having too many men on the night, and nine seconds into the man advantage, the game was tied as Kucherov fired a shot past Howard to make it 1-1.
For Kucherov, it was his 12th goal of the season, extending his NHL lead. Stamkos went into the night leading the NHL in points (20) with three goals and a league-best 17 assists.
NOTES: The Lightning kept the same lineup as Tuesday night's win at Carolina, with C Cedric Paquette missing a fourth straight game with an upper-body injury. C Gabriel Dumont and D Slater Koekkoek were healthy scratches for Tampa Bay. ... Detroit had hoped to have D Danny DeKeyser back for the first time, but he missed an eighth straight game with a lower-body injury. LW David Booth and RW Luke Witkowski were healthy scratches.