The Lightning find depth up and down the lineup vs Arizona.
The Lightning find depth up and down the lineup vs Arizona.
The Tampa Bay Lightning won their sixth straight home game over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night. Darren Raddysh opened the scoring 24 seconds in on the first shot of the game. They later added five more to the total, finding depth across the lineup.
It was another night of milestones.
Lightning Captain Steven Stamkos had a goal and assist, which brought him to 1,101 career points. He’s the first player in franchise history to reach 1,000+ points with all games played as a member of the Lightning. Anthony Cirelli skated in his 400th career regular season game and picked up an assist as well.
Rookie Mitchell Chaffee recorded his first career NHL goal after being called up from AHL Syracuse on Wednesday. Both assists came from a pair of rookies in Max Crozier and Emil Lilleberg. Chaffee later added an assist on Luke Glendening’s goal in the third period. The kids continue to bring the energy.
"It doesn't seem too exciting anymore after Stammer's 1100 points, but congrats to him," Chaffee joked of scoring his first NHL goal. "Crozier just kind of banked it off the goalie and it came back to me and the biggest thing was trying to elevate the puck and get it upstairs and it found the back of the net."
The Lightning made a few mistakes defensively, and all three of those led to goals for the Coyotes.
Nikita Kucherov moved back on top of the NHL leader board with another 3 point night. Stamkos, Point and Kucherov have all continued to produce at a high level, combining for seven points on the night.
"This stretch has been pretty amazing," Stamkos said of Kucherov. "I don't want to use the word surprising, because like I always say, I see the work that he puts in, so there's a correlation. The level that he's played at this year is another reason why we've won seven of the last eight. He's a huge part of that."
In total, 12 different Lightning players recorded a point and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 17 of 20 shots on the night.
The Lightning have one more game on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils before the Allstar break.
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