TAMPA, Fla. – The Tampa Bay Lightning scored three goals in the first 3:58 of the second period and Nikita Kucherov dished out two assists to equate 600, and the Bolts passed by the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1, on Saturday evening.
Kucherov assisted Jake Guentzel’s power-play goal just 15 seconds into the second period and then his 600th assist came on a power-play goal from Darren Raddysh at the 15:06 mark of the second.
The Lightning star was asked in the post-game about his 600th assist and he said, “Cool,” which was his only description.
“Well, you got four letters out of him,” laughed coach Jon Cooper.
Kucherov picked up his goal to give the Lightning a 3-0 lead at the 1:50 mark of the second period. He once again showed masterful puck handling and stick movement as he took the puck through the middle of the Detroit defense with a pair of patented moves and scored on the top shelf over Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot.
“Six hundred assists,” stated Cooper. “It’s crazy. You sit here and say that and you have seen almost every one of them.”
Kucherov rose to 21 goals and 46 assists on the season as he once again should be able to record 100 points as he has done the last two seasons in addition to two other times in his career.
“There’s not enough time to talk about what ‘Kuch’ has meant to this organization – to this league quite frankly,” said Cooper. “He’s a generational player. Hopefully, we get to see hundreds more of those in the future.”
Cooper discussed how Red Wings forward Patrick Kane was a player in which Kucherov could have fashioned his game.
“Those two were on the ice all night,” said Cooper. “Probably a “cool” night for ‘Kuch,’ for me to use his word. To do it with somebody of Kane’s stature in the building, Those guys are such competitors, but it was a pretty magnificent goal.”
The Lightning penalty kill cooled off the Red Wings’ power play as Detroit came into the game second in the NHL with 39 goals on the odd-man advantage. Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy joined Tampa Bay’s special teams in allowing only one power play goal in six opportunities.
“It’s a funny game,” Cooper noted. “It’s always tough to come back in this league and you are always feeling stress at some point. With the amount of penalties we took, there was a little bit of stress during the game, but we got through it.”
The quick scores in the second period halted whatever chance Detroit could have had to even the game or take the lead.
“A couple of penalties hurt us, so we tried to address the penalty issue,” Cooper explained. “It didn’t quite work out that way. I thought the way we came out in that second period … It was a 1-0 game and then all of a sudden it’s a 4-0 game in that first four minutes, so that was clearly the turning point in this game.”
Vasilevskiy once again showed his top goaltending acumen as he turned away 39 of 40 Detroit shots and managed the Wings’ power play opportunities extremely well.
“For me personally, to see a few shots in the first period helps a lot,” commented Vasilevskiy. “To feel the puck and to feel a lot of that confidence in you helps a lot. Guys are able to go through the first period and then we score three goals in like the first minutes of the second period, so good job.”
