Offense scored early and Andrei Vasilevskiy played at his finest in an action packed 5-2 win in Colorado. A four-game road trip all against Western Conference teams began tonight in Colorado. After being out of the lineup the past four games, Darren Raddysh was slotted into the lineup replacing Nick Perbix. A chippy second period made the game interesting and depleted the Lightning in the process. Lightning were able to regroup and prevent the Avalanche from ever getting back into the game. While the offense did cool down as the game went on, Vasilevskiy ensured the lead was here to stay.
Offense strikes quickly
To begin, Nikita Kucherov returned to the scoring sheet with a goal not even two minutes into the game. Brayden Point circled the net before passing puck to an open Kucherov. He then blasted the puck past Kaapo Kahkonen for the early 1-0 lead. Then, Jake Guentzel scored to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead in the early stages of the period. Similar to Point, Kucherov took the puck behind the net and then passed it to Guentzel who scored from the side of the net. Lightning scored both goals off two of their four shots to begin the game and it would not stop. Before a TV timeout occurred, Tampa scored a third goal this one coming from Conor Geekie on a tic-tac-toe play. A disastrous beginning for Colorado, but for Tampa they could not have asked for a better start.
We're Geekin' pic.twitter.com/bMH5gyaRFk
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) October 31, 2024
Colorado nets one back
Geekie’s goal came off the rush just like the first two as Tampa punished the Avalanche defense. Afterwards, Lightning received the first power play of the night with Mikko Rantanen sent off for tripping. However, Cale Makar was tripped by Vasilevskiy giving Colorado a power play and a good chance to get on the board. On the power play Ivan Ivan scored to cut the Lightning lead 3-1. Avalanche are known to be a deadly team on the man-advantage, and they proved that in front of the home crowd. First period ended with no further damage done as the Lightning kept the two-goal lead.
Keeping Colorado’s lethal power play at bay
As the second period started so did the pressure from the Lightning offense. On the flipside, Colorado began to apply pressure and Vasilevskiy had to make huge saves to keep them from scoring. Soon after, Avalanche went on the power play for a second time with Emil Lilleberg sent off for rouging. As a result of retaliating the hit on Zegmus Girgensons, Lilleberg received an extra two minutes while Matt Stienburgh received two for rouging. Somehow Tampa escaped without giving up a goal and it remained 3-1.
Jake adds to the lead
Fortunately, Guentzel buried the rebound from a shot by Point for his second of the game and extend the lead to 4-1. A plethora of scoring chances were generated but thanks to Vasilevskiy only Tampa was able to captivate off those chances. For a third time Colorado was on the power play and hoped to score for a second time on the man-advantage. Once again, Lightning killed off the penalty but immediately coughed up another one.
Jake cleaning up 🤝 pic.twitter.com/WyJ6XMeKzp
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) October 31, 2024
The madness begins
On this power play Avalanche nearly scored but the puck went off the iron and there was no rebound to follow up. Penalty kill does a superb job to keep the puck from going in and the score is still 4-1. Both power plays were Colorado’s best chances to score more goals but still could not answer Tampa’s defense no matter how hard they tried. Before the period ended chaos ensued after a couple penalties were reviewed. Stienburgh was given a five-minute major for charging and a 10-minute misconduct for his hit on Erik Cernak.Cernak left the ice following the hit and never returned. Chris Wagner laid a hit on Ryan McDonagh that should have been a boarding call but was not even after review. Anthony Cirelli was then given a 2-minute minor for roughing, but Tampa still received a power play now down two defensemen.
Give up a goal but keeping the large lead
Lightning began the period with 2:18 left on the power play. Colorado killed off the major penalty but still trailed by 3 goals. For the first time tonight play on the ice began to cool down. Shortly after Colorado applied a lot of pressure on Tampa’s defense but Vasy continued to remain sharp. In a surprise to nobody Mike Eyssimont dropped the gloves with Wagner although it was not much of a fight. Lightning wanted an excuse to go after Wagner and decided now was the time to do it with 10:38 left. No power plays came out of it but the Avalanche eventually found a goal. Cale Makar score to make it 4-2 Lightning with just over 8 minutes to go.
Road trip starts off with a dominate victory
After the goal Tampa went on the power play for a third time with a too many men called on Colorado. Despite the continuous rushes by the Avalanche Vasilevskiy refused to yield and could not add to their lead. McDonagh eventually returned to the bench and was back on the ice. Kahkonen was pulled with just over two minutes to go but the deficit was too much to come back from. Cirelli scored on the empty net and the Lightning extended the win streak to three. Clearly, this was Vasilevskiy’s best game of the season and the main reason why the Avalanche had no chance to comeback along with the offense early on.
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) October 31, 2024
Three stars of the game
1st Star: Andrei Vasilevskiy – Stopped 33 of 35 shots faced
2nd Star: Nikita Kucherov – 1 goal and 2 assists
3rd Star: Jake Guentzel – 2 goals
