By Ken Cross
TAMPA, Fla. – Rethinking the music is sometimes a norm when rewriting a formerly popular Blues music score. The Tampa Bay Lightning became composers of their rendition of creating their own Blues musical when they used goals by role players and a sticky, hard-nosed defense in the 3-1 win over St. Louis in Amalie Arena on Thursday evening.
Lightning center Gage Goncalves orchestrated his first career goal while defenseman Nick Perbix and center Anthony Cirelli featured the Lightning’s first two markers as Tampa Bay defended in posting the 3-1 decision.
Thursday’s win saw the Lightning withstand a physical Blues team that outshot Tampa Bay, 32-18. The Lightning had scored 18 goals in the previous three contests. The Bolts’ defense was a major figure in allowing the fourth consecutive win and six of its last seven games.
“I think for the most of each game, we are sticking to our structure,” said Cirelli. “The biggest thing is we are defending well, Guys are sacrificing their bodies, being in the right spots trying to protect the middle.”
Defensively the penalty-kill, dismissed two St. Louis power plays as Tampa Bay has erased 15 of 17 odd-man opportunities in December.
“We have had a decent December but when you look at goals against and the chances we are giving up … ” explained Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. “We gave one up tonight. Unfortunately, we gave up three in a period against Columbus, but two of the periods were exceptional for us on the defensive side of the puck, so that’s five pretty good periods in that regard.”
Goncalves scored his first career marker at 13:33 in the third period when Kucherov left the puck in front of Goncalves in the left circle. His shot came in the left circle where he lifted the puck over Bennington’s left shoulder for the 3-1 advantage.
“He’s figuring out the league is what he is doing and he has a skill set to play in this league,” said Cooper. “He can skate with everybody in this league so it’s just a matter of gaining experience and knowing what you can and can’t do.”
Goncalves didn’t know he had scored until the message was relayed to him by his teammates.
“As soon as I shot it, I kind of got peeled off to the side, so I didn’t know it went in until I locked eyes with (Ryan) McDonough and he was like, ‘It’s in! It’s in!’” explained Goncalves. “It kind of caught me off guard so that’s what happens.”
The most dramatic and spectacular goal of the evening happened when Perbix was the recipient of the puck in a literal passing clinic by the Lightning early in the second period.
Brayden Point went cross-ice on a pass to Nikita Kucherov, who was on the right circle. Kucherov found Perbix going through the middle of the St. Louis defense on a rush. Purbix skated by Blues defenseman Cam Fowler and beat Colton Parayko as he gave Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead at 3:42 in the second period.
Kucherov later picked up his second assist of the game when he posted the pass that set up Goncalves’ first career marker.
Cirelli gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at the 5:14 mark of the first period when he managed the puck off of a Conor Geekie pass on the right side of the crease and flipped it over Blues goalie Jordan Bennington’s left blocker.
“The strength of our team is being able to score,” summarized Cirelli, who recorded his 13th goal of the season. “If you can get two, three, four goals per game, that’s good enough to win. The ‘D’ side is a big part of it, so we got those three and that was good for two points.”
Bolts goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy turned away 31 shots to secure the win. His three glove saves on the Blues’ breakaway opportunities were monumental.
