Johnson, Kucherov score twice in Lightning victory
TAMPA, Fla. -- Tyler Johnson broke out of a month-long scoring slump with two goals to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning past the San Jose Sharks 5-2 on Saturday.
Johnson scored twice in the third period to break a tie and end a 15-game goalless drought dating to Oct. 24 at Carolina. Nikita Kucherov also scored twice to tie Alex Ovechkin for the league lead with 19 as Tampa Bay swept the two-game season series from the Sharks.
Cory Conacher, called up Friday, scored his second goal in as many games with Tampa Bay this season.
Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 25 saves for his league-leading 17th victory of the season.
Martin Jones returned to the net for the Sharks after missing the previous two games because of an injury and made 38 saves. Barclay Goodrow and Justin Braun scored for San Jose, which saw a three-game winning streak come to an end. The Sharks were 4-0-2 in their last six games.
San Jose opened the scoring late in the first period when Daniel O'Regan threw a shot from the left circle on net that was kicked out by Vasilevskiy right in to the path of Goodrow, who had a step on Slater Koekkoek and scored at 16:58. It was Goodrow's first of the season and first since Feb. 13, a span of 45 games.
But the lead didn't last long. On the opening shift of the second period, Ondrej Palat sent a cross-ice pass over to Kucherov, who redirected a backhand shot past Jones to tie the game 27 seconds into the period.
Early in the third period, Johnson put Tampa Bay in front as Palat sent a hard dump-in off the boards that caromed to a streaking Johnson, who lifted a quick backhand shot over Jones for a power play goal at 1:39. Just over four minutes later, Johnson notched his second of the game after a Victor Hedman chance popped up in the air behind Jones and was swept off the line by Brenden Dillon but right to Johnson who had an open net to shoot to score his sixth goal of the season.
Conacher made it 4-1 off an Alex Killorn pass 11:01 before Braun cut the deficit in half with 6:23 left in regulation.
Kucherov added an insurance goal with 4:23 remaining.
NOTES: Tampa Bay D Braydon Coburn missed the game with an undisclosed lower-body injury. ... The Lightning called up D Jamie McBain from Syracuse of the American Hockey League but he was a healthy scratch. ... Tampa Bay C Cedric Paquette missed the game while serving a one-game suspension. ... San Jose placed D Tim Heed and RW Joonas Donskoi on injured reserve. ... The Sharks scratched LW Marcus Sorensen, who was called up earlier in the day, along with LW Mikkel Boedker and C Melker Karlsson. ... The Lightning have a power-play goal in six consecutive games and 11 of the past 12.