TAMPA, Fla. – Tampa Bay Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli scored two goals in his 500th career game while Nikita Kucherov had a goal and two assists as the Bolts struck for a 6-1 decision over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Lightning moved into fifth in the Eastern Conference where they are three points off of second place Carolina.
Tampa Bay reasserted itself after back-to-back losses to Utah and Vegas ended their road trip.
“I’ve said time and time again, these are tough ones when you are in different time zones and on a week-long road trip and then that first game back,” said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. “Both teams probably looked sloppy in the beginning and things we needed to work on defensively. We had lost our attention to detail on the last couple of games of that road trip. That was a big focal point tonight.”
Tampa Bay returned to it’s dominant character by allowing Pittsburgh to take only 15 shots on goal as the Lightning outshots the Penguins 27-15 and were 2-of-6 on the power play.
The Lightning scored four first-period goals in 3:45 as Cirelli ignited the Bolts with the first goal at 12:13 when forward Nick Paul gathered the puck after a deflected shot and fed Cirelli in the middle of the ice for a short goal.
“I like the way we defended and in that first period, the pucks had eyes for us,” Cooper commented. “They did a lot of really good things to put themselves in position to score. Some nights those don’t go in and tonight they all went in.”
Cirelli scored the third goal in Tampa Bay’s surge when forward Brandon Hagel secured the puck off of a turnover. Hagel found Cirelli on the left side of the ice where he fired a shot past Pittsburgh goalie Tristan Jarry’s glove to give the Lightning a 3-0 lead at 15:20.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan pulled Jarry in favor of Alex Nedeljkovic after the fourth goal.
“I stay on the forecheck and come up with pucks, getting pucks to the net, just like a grind kind of game,” said Cirelli. “I thought we wanted to establish that to stay on the forecheck and keep that simple.”
Cirelli’s connections on his 25th and 26th goals of the season are a personal scoring record as his 52 points are the most in his career.
“I think the focus for us is to come out strong, at home here,” Cirelli commented. “I am just kind of trying to get that complete. Obviously I was able to get back in there. I just was able to get in there and we played within our structure.”
Cirelli discussed how giving up the 10 goals to the Utah Hockey Club and the Vegas Golden Knights served as a motivator to return to the aggression that has allowed them to threaten the Atlantic Divsion championship as well as ascend to the top in the Eastern Conference.
“Obviously, we didn’t like our games, the last two on the road trip, especially on the D-side of the puck,” he said. “So we had to stick to the defensive structure. I thought we did a lot of video so we could get back to being defensive in the right spots, not cheating the game. I thought tonight we did that. Obviously we gave up one late.”
The timing of another special evening by Cirelli conciuded with his 500th career game as he has spent his entire career in the Lightning uniform.
“Pretty special,” noted Cirelli. “You dream of just being able to play in one. It’s special to be able to play in 500 and thank so many people a long the way, especially my teammates and all the guys I was able to learn from from that first game all the way until now.”
Kucherov also figured prominently in the first period when he assisted on a cross-ice pass to Ryan McDonough. who scored when the puck bounced off a Penguin’s skate for the 2-0 lead.
He also picked up his second assist of the evening at the 16-minute mark when he assisted Brayden Point’s 35th goal of the season which gave Tampa Bay the 4-0 advantage.
Kucherov scored at 15:31 in the second period when he scored from the right circle on an assist from Darren Raddysh
“He just keeps going,” said Cooper. “It’s impressive and what’s impressive is he has become a well-rounded player too. Hes a leader on the team now and guys look up to him. You always feel ‘Kuch’ is one of the young guys and he’s not so much any more, but has delivered time and time again for this group not so many guys can say they sit here and round off 100 points on a semi-regular basis. He’s been able to do it so it is pretty impressive.”
