TAMPA – Edmonton Oilers centers Leon Daisaitl and Connor McDavid are the focal point of the team which has posted 3.26 goals per game as Edmonton and Tampa Bay are two of the best-scoring teams in the NHL.
Tuesday evening, the Lightning asserted its defense once again and the Bolts took a 4-1 win that moved them into a fourth-place tie with the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference.
This Lightning defense continues to thrive in its six-game win streak although Draisaitl scored first as the Oilers took a 1-0 lead at 11:53.
Draisaitl leads the NHL with 30 even-strength goals and is tied with three other players with 13 power play markers. Draisaitl has been consistently effective with six goals in the Oilers’ last five games.
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 23 shots and the Lightning held the Oilers to just 24 shots on goal in outshooting Edmonton, 36-24.
“We are not giving up a slew of chances and when we give up one, that’s it,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “The odd-man rushes aren’t there, so we have really done a good job in just concentrating on the areas that you need to win.”
Tampa Bay immediately evened the score at 13:11 when Gage Goncalves broke toward the goal and passed the puck to Mike Eyssimont, who scored on a backhand shot. He connected for his fifth goal of the season after controlling the puck off the pass.
Brandon Hagel scored 29 seconds into the second period on a wrap-around goal and pushed the puck by Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner’s right blocker. It was Hagel’s sixth consecutive game where he has been able to get points.
“I think it’s just the buy-in from everybody,” said forward Nick Paul, “We know when the game gets tight, we have to push. We are not forcing plays. We are playing some great hockey at the beginning and we were just very consistent where we are trying to force plays in the neutral zone.”
Tampa Bay’s offense has been able to attack with consistency in the opposing zones as Cooper says puck management has been a major assertion inside of the Lightning system.
“Every time you go down the ice, you want to score, so a big part of it is position and how much you make the team work in the defensive zone,” explained Cooper. “A big part of it is how we have managed the puck, especially here late in the year.”
Victor Hedman gave Tampa Bay the 3-1 lead at 5:38 in the second after Draisaitl was penalized for a high stick at 4:30 and then Ryan Nugent-Hopkins received a high-sticking penalty at 5:18.
Hedman lifted the puck on a shot from between the blue line and the face-off circles to score and put more pressure on the Oilers’ offense.
Tampa Bay’s final goal came at 7:38 in the third when Jake Guentzel hit Paul who pushed the puck by Skinner for the 4-1 lead.
“Tonight’s game sticks out because we really defended well,” Cooper commented. “We really defended well in the two Ottawa games that started this win streak and I think we played well in the other games and goaltending helped us in the Detroit and Montreal games.”
Nikita Kucherov added two more assists as he now has 59 and is second behind Colorado’s Nathan Mackinnon who has tabulated 67. Mackinnon leads the NHL with 90 points with Draisaitl (87) and Kucherov (85) challenging.
