Nick Paul set a career high for goals in a season during Tampa Bay’s four-goal second period and Brayden Point notched his 200th career tally as the Lightning throttled the visiting Anaheim Ducks 6-1 on Tuesday night.
After a scoreless first period, Paul scored the first of four Tampa Bay goals in the second by firing in his 17th, eclipsing his career high of 16 while playing for the Ottawa Senators and Lightning last season.
Tampa Bay stretched its franchise-record home point streak to 15 games (14-0-1). The club has scored at least three goals in nine consecutive home games and in 24 of its total of 28 this season.
Point reached his milestone on the power play, and Ross Colton had a power-play goal and an assist. Anthony Cirelli, Zach Bogosian and Corey Perry scored as 13 Lightning players had points.
Defenseman Nick Perbix handed out three assists and Alex Killorn posted two as the defending Eastern Conference champions improved to 20-7-2 against Western Conference competition.
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy denied 24 Anaheim shots. He is now 5-1-0 in his career against the Ducks.
Anaheim’s Ryan Strome scored his 11th goal to end the shutout bid. In his 13th career appearance, rookie goaltender Lukas Dostal was strong early but eventually surrendered six goals on 44 shots.
All-Star forward Troy Terry (upper body) missed his seventh consecutive game for the Ducks, who dropped their sixth straight game (0-5-1).
Vasilevskiy and Dostal stole the show in a scoreless first period. However, the Lightning — the NHL’s fourth-highest scoring team at 3.51 goals per game — were able to break through and take control with four goals in less than six minutes in an explosive middle period.
At 7:15, Paul raced in and ripped home the game’s first goal from the right circle. Just 2:33 later and on the club’s fourth power play, Colton netted his 12th by one-timing a pass from Mikhail Sergachev.
Cirelli pushed the lead to 3-0 with a deke of Dostal in close, potting his seventh marker at 10:51. Bogosian notched his first goal in his 32nd game with a blast at 13:10 as Tampa Bay produced the first 21 shots in the period and held a 22-1 shot advantage in the 20 minutes.
Before Strome tallied in the third, Point and Perry netted markers, helping Tampa Bay sweep the season series from the Ducks and move to 22-4-2 at home.
–Field Level Media