High-flying best describes the Lightning tonight following a 4-2 victory over the Blues. The win would only be Tampa’s 5th in St. Louis. While Stamkos did not score goal #500 he still contributed on offense and made his presence felt. Brayden Point’s two goal game was a for sure factor as the night went on. Much like Minnesota, St. Louis was never kind to the Bolts but tonight was a much different story. Starting a long road trip with a victory is always important which can lead to momentum for the next few games.
Answering the goal
Starting off, both teams came out firing keeping the puck in constant motion. In the opening minutes of the game the home team struck first. Tyler Pitlick took a breakaway chance and made the Bolts pay scoring the first goal of the night. Afterwards, St. Louis kept the pressure on Andrei Vasilevskiy who prevented them from adding to the lead. Midway through the period Blues remained in control of the game keeping Tampa’s scoring chances at a minimum. However, Lightning soon answered back to tie up the game. Nick Perbix passed the puck to Brayden Point who fired it past Jordan Binnington for his 24th of the season.
Taking the lead
Then, Blues received the first power play of the night after Erik Cernak is called for hooking. Nothing would arise from the man advantage as Tampa killed off the penalty with ease. Following, Tampa then went on the power play after Point draws a hooking penalty. On the man advantage Steven Stamkos fed the puck to Point who scored his second of the game to extend the Bolts lead 2-1. First period would end with the Lightning scoring two unanswered goals.
Killing off penalties
A complete opposite start to the first period as Tampa’s offense fired off like a cannonball. What looked like a power play for the Lightning turned out to be an off-sides call giving the Blues some relief. The relief would be short term as Tampa ended up going on the power play for the second time tonight. So far, all three penalties called were for hooking. This time Blues killed off the penalty and the score remained 2-1. Teams would once again exchange scoring chances with both goalies standing tall. Around the halfway mark Blues would go on the power play for a second time.
Offense goes high-flying
Penalty was killed off making the Blues 0/2 on the man advantage. Later on, Lightning extended the lead 3-1 after a shot from Nick Perbix beat Binnington up high. However, Blues would get the goal back thanks to Pavel Buchnevich cutting the lead 3-2. In addition, late in the period Alex Killorn scored his 14th of the season to make it a 4-2 game. Brandon Hagel perfectly set up Killorn for the easy tap in that Binnington had no chance in saving. Blues nearly made it a 1 goal game again, but Vasy came up with the save heading into the third period.
🚀🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/ozmfq6lOG8
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) January 15, 2023
Keeping the two-goal lead
As the third period begins the Lightning looked to keep their high-flying offense going. Blues would go on the power play for a third time after Killorn in called for Hi-sticking. Again, Bolts kill it off thanks to Mikhail Sergachev saving a sure goal on the kill. At this point Tampa was locked in to maintaining the two-goal lead. They would do just that as St. Louis would never reach the back of the net for the remainder of the game. All in all, while Stamkos did not score his 500th goal, Lightning went on to win the game 4-2. The victory would only be the 5th time the Bolts have won in St. Louis.
Three stars of the game
1st Star: Brayden Point – 2 goals and 1 assist
2nd Star: Nick Perbix – 1 goal and 1 assist
3rd Star: Steven Stamkos – 1 assist
For complete coverage of the Lightning, follow all our content on TheScrumSports.com and Youtube.
