Blues 2, Lightning 1
TAMPA, Fla. -- The Lightning avoided their first shutout in nearly two months, but took another loss, with St. Louis goalie Brian Elliott stopping the first 35 Tampa Bay shots and the Blues holding on for a 2-1 victory at Amalie Arena.
St. Louis (32-17-9) got a goal in the opening minute of the second period on a breakaway by center Robby Fabbri and made that lead stick, even as they were outshot by a 2-to-1 margin for most of the game. Tampa Bay (30-21-4) has now lost three of its last four to drop into a tie for the eighth and final playoff spot in the tightly bunched Eastern Conference standings.
Tampa Bay pulled its goalie in the final two minutes and scored with the extra attacker for the second game in a row, with right winger Nikita Kucherov scoring his 23rd goal of the season to retake the team lead with 52 seconds left. The Lightning were unable to tie the game in the final minute, however.
Scoring was sparse in the opening two periods, with the Blues taking a 1-0 lead off a costly turnover in the opening minute of the second period.
Coming off a faceoff, the puck got past the Lightning defense, leading to a two-on-none breakaway, with Fabbri beating Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop for his 13th goal of the season. Fabbri took a long pass from forward Paul Stastny, who picked up his 22nd assist of the season on the play.
The goal came on just the fifth shot of the game for the Blues, who had no shots in the first nine minutes and just three in the opening period. While the Lightning had more opportunities -- a 23-14 edge on shots entering the third period -- they weren't able to get any of those past Elliott.
St. Louis wet up 2-0 with another breakaway goal with 2:19 left -- it was initially ruled that center Patrick Berglund had kicked in the puck on a rebound off his missed shot, but that call was reversed on official review and deemed a goal, his fourth of the season.
Lightning center Vladislav Namestnikov went hard into the boards in the final minute of the second period and went directly to the locker room, but he was back on the bench for the start of the third period.
NOTES: The Lightning, playing the second game in a four-game, seven-day homestand, had C Jonathan Marchessault and recent call-up D Slater Koekkoek as healthy scratches, while St. Louis scratched RW Dmitrij Jaskin, D Peter Harrold and LW Magnus Paajarvi. ... The Blues, coming off a 5-3 road win against the Florida Panthers on Friday, return home for two games, starting Tuesday against the Dallas Stars. St. Louis came in with a 14-8-5 road record, while the Lightning had built up an 18-8-2 home record, including nine straight home wins, one short of tying a franchise record. ... The Lightning swapped out backup goalies, with Andrei Vasilevskiy recalled from Syracuse and Kristers Gudlevskis sent back down to the AHL two days after the club made the opposite swap. The original move was made to get Vasilevskiy more work in the minors.