Sissons scores 3 in Predators' rout of Lightning
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Nashville Predators proved efficiently effective to earn their second victory in the past six games.
Colton Sissons registered his first career hat trick to lead the Predators to a 6-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday at Amalie Arena.
Pekka Rinne stopped 27 shots for Nashville. The Predators scored six goals on 18 shots as Ryan Ellis, Mike Fisher and Filip Forsberg also scored.
Tyler Johnson scored on the power play and Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with just 13 saves for the Lightning, who dropped the final two games of a five-game home stand. Tampa Bay had picked up points in seven of the previous eight games before losing the past two.
Nashville cashed in on an early power play chance when Ryan Johansen fed a perfect pass across the crease area to an open Fisher cutting in from the circle for a backdoor tap-in just 2:25 in to the game.
The Predators grabbed a two-goal lead early in the second on an innocent play when Forsberg delivered a wrist shot from the right circle that found a seam past two players in front and surprised Vasilevskiy as it found the top corner at 3:56.
The Lightning cut that lead in half on the power play when Johnson stepped in to a snapshot from the right circle for his 12th of the season to give Tampa Bay momentum. The ice was tilted in the Lightning's favor, but it all came to a halt when Sissons sent a shot from the middle of the right circle that tipped off the stick of Victor Hedman and knuckled over Vasilevskiy's glove at 13:21 to regain the two-goal lead.
Nashville added to the lead less than a minute later on Ellis's shot, again from the right side of the ice, beat Vasilevskiy to the glove side again. The goal was originally waived off for incidental contact with the goaltender but was overturned on a challenge from Nashville. Tampa Bay then challenged that the entry play was offside, but replay proved inconclusive as the puck sailed high as it crossed the blue line.
The Predators scored their fourth goal on just their ninth shot of the game.
Tampa Bay was unable to mount any sort of a comeback and Sissons added his second of the game in to an empty net with 5:58 left in the third. Sissons completed the hat trick, stuffing in a rebound off Calle Jarnkrok's shot with 3:00 left in the game.
NOTES: Nashville RW James Neal did not take part in the morning skate for what the team called "maintenance" but was scratched with a lower-body injury. ... Predators LW Viktor Arvidsson appeared in his 100th career game. ... Nashville recalled D Anthony Bitetto from a conditioning assignment. ... Tampa Bay G Adam Wilcox, called up from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Wednesday, became the sixth member of Tampa Bay's 2011 draft class to dress for a game in the NHL. All six members of that draft class dressed Thursday: Nikita Kucherov, Matthew Peca, Nikita Nesterov, Ondrej Palat, Vladislav Namestnikov and Wilcox. ... Nashville D Petter Granberg was scratched. ... Tampa Bay D Andrej Sustr was a healthy scratch.