Darren Raddysh produced three points, Oliver Bjorkstrand reached a milestone of international proportions, and the Tampa Bay Lightning capped their four-game homestand with a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Monday night.
Raddysh, a defenseman, tallied on a power play and dished out two assists.
Bjorkstrand became just the fourth Dane to reach 400 NHL points, also scoring on the man advantage. He joined countrymen Nikolaj Ehlers, Frans Nielsen and Lars Eller in the 400-point club.
Pontus Holmberg and Anthony Cirelli each chipped in with a goal and Nikita Kucherov and Jake Guentzel posted two helpers apiece as the Lightning finished 2-2-0 on the homestand. Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 23 shots.
Justin Faulk found the net and Jordan Binnington made 13 saves as St. Louis dropped to 5-4-1 in its past 10 games.
Top-line center Robert Thomas played in his 500th NHL game, all with the Blues, while first-year St. Louis winger Pius Suter skated in game No. 400.
After rallying for a 6-4 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, the Lightning got right back to their scoring ways just 21 seconds into Monday contest.
Raddysh sent a pass into the slot intentionally wide, and Holmberg perfectly redirected the puck past Binnington for the quick tally.
On the game’s first power play, Tampa Bay moved the puck crisply. In the final seconds of it, Raddysh hammered a shot that caromed off Faulk at 9:12 of the opening period for a 2-0 lead.
Vasilevskiy kept it that way by stopping Oskar Sundqvist’s 1-on-1 chance with 1:03 left until the first intermission, the Blues’ best scoring chance of the period.
St. Louis pulled within one when Tucker drove around the end boards, slipped a pass out top and Faulk hammered home his 10th goal and fourth in the past six games at 6:43 of the second period.
Cirelli had a quick answer, though. The Blues failed to clear the puck, and the forward hit the net for a 3-1 edge less than two minutes after Faulk’s marker.
In the third, Bjorkstrand capitalized on good puck movement by the Lightning and made it the 4-1 final margin on a power play at 5:36.
–Field Level Media
