Stralman's two goals help Lightning top Avalanche
DENVER -- Anton Stralman scored twice, Yanni Gourde had a goal and two assists, and the Tampa Bay Lightning held on to beat the Colorado Avalanche 6-5 for their seventh straight win on Saturday night.
Tampa Bay led 4-0 in the second period but had to withstand a late push from the Avalanche, who got a hat trick from captain Gabriel Landeskog and another two goals from Nathan MacKinnon to get within one goal twice in the third.
Mikhail Sergachev made it a two-goal advantage at the 11:32 mark of the period before MacKinnon expertly tipped Nikita Zadorov's shot over Tampa Bay goalie Peter Budaj's shoulder to make 6-5 with 5:46 remaining.
After six goals in the period, Colorado pulled goalie Jonathan Bernier around 2 minutes remaining but Budaj made a series of key saves to help the Lightning hold on.
In the end, it was a sigh of relief for the NHL's best team. The Lightning (24-6-2) beat the Avalanche (15-15-2) for the second time in nine days and remains unbeaten in the month of December.
Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov each had a goal and an assist for the Lightning, who turned a scoreless game into a 4-0 lead in a span of 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Budaj stopped 32 shots.
Kucherov scored his NHL-best 23rd goal of the season to open the scoring 9:11 into the second. He took an expert pass from Hedman and beat Bernier over the shoulder to give him a goal for a fourth straight game.
Stralman answered 19 seconds later, followed by goals from Hedman and Gourde.
Landeskog scored Colorado's next three goals to pull the Avalache within 5-3 at the 7:17 mark of the third.
Bernier made 25 saves for Colorado.
NOTES: RW Nail Yakupov, who missed the last five games because of an illness, replaced LW Gabriel Bourque in the lineup for Colorado. ... The Lightning have outscored the opposition 33-15 during their six-game winning streak. ... C Alexander Kerfoot missed a third straight game with a foot injury. ... Tampa Bay will be without RW Ryan Callahan for at least three to four weeks with an upper-body injury. No corresponding call-up was made by the team Saturday.