The Tampa Bay Lightning concluded their California road trip at the SAP Center in San Jose on Saturday afternoon.
Macklin Celebrini had a rough giveaway in front of the Sharks’ net early in the first period, giving Tampa a strong scoring chance, but Yaroslav Askarov made the stop. On the rush, Maxwell Crozier found Brayden Point who scored in his third straight game, giving the Lightning an early 1-0 lead two-and-a-half minutes into the game.
Darren Raddysh added to Tampa Bay’s lead after a nice play by Gage Goncalves to force a turnover in the Sharks’ zone. Notably, and unsurprisingly, Nikita Kucherov picked an assist on both of the goals. The Sharks used their timeout just four minutes into the game as a result of Raddysh’s goal.
Jake Guentzel found Brandon Hagel in some space roughly seven minutes into the game, and Hagel’s 19th goal of the season made it 3-0 for the Lightning.
Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky pulled his young goaltender, Askarov, after Hagel’s goal, bringing in their veteran backup, Alex Nedeljkovic. Erik Cernak gave the Sharks their first power play opportunity of the night when he tripped up Collin Graf. Moments after Andrei Vasilevskiy robbed Pavol Regenda with a massive save, Regenda got another chance off of a rebound, and this time, it found the back of the net, making it 3-1.
Celebrini and J.J. Moser got tied up in the corner with roughly a minute remaining in the first. Moser would be called for roughing, giving the Sharks another chance on the power play. The Lightning would kill off just under a minute of the penalty before the first period came to an end.
The Lightning killed off the rest of the penalty before Regenda was called for tripping Point, giving Tampa Bay their first man advantage of the night. Raddysh got his second goal of the night when he fired off a one-timer from the point, making it 4-1.
Moments later, the Sharks won a faceoff, but a poor play by the defensemen resulted in the puck landing on Dominic James’s stick in front of the net. He was able to beat Nedeljkovic, making it 5-1. Then, at the other end of the ice, James bailed out his netminder as well. The puck got past Vasilevskiy, but James was there to clear it out of the crease.
At some point in the first period, the Sharks lost defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin, who went left the game with an unknown injury.
Just before the midway point in the game, Regenda scored his second of the night to cut the Lightning’s lead to 5-2.
Moser threw a massive hit on Celebrini, which resulted in Sharks forward William Eklund going after the Lightning defenseman. Both Moser and Eklund went to the box, but Eklund received an additional penalty, giving the Lightning their second power play of the night. A minute into the penalty, Nikita Kucherov picked up his fourth point, and first goal, of the night, extending the Lightning’s lead to 6-2.
With 4:21 remaining, Ryan Reaves and Zack Ostapchuk of the Sharks caused a massive skirmish as retribution for the hit on Celebrini. Moser, Hagel, Cirelli, and Guentzel were all caught up in the mess. Hagel and Reaves kept going back and forth verbally in the penalty box while the officials attempted to sort everything out. Anthony Cirelli had to play cleanup crew, as he carried all of the Lightning’s equipment to the penalty box.
Moser, Hagel, and Guentzel all got penalties for the Lightning, while Ostapchuk, Reaves, and Barclay Goodrow all went to the box for the Sharks. Goodrow was given a 10-minute misconduct for his role in the chaos, and the Lightning ended up with a two-minute power play when all the paperwork was filed away.
Darren Raddysh put away his third goal of the night on the ensuing man-advantage, making it 7-2 in favor of the Lightning. Interesting note, he was the second Raddysh brother to score a hat trick against the Sharks this season:
The chippiness continued late in the period, as there was another major scrum with 36 seconds remaining in the second, this time centered around Gage Goncalves and Dmitry Orlov. Erik Cernak and Sam Dickinson also had some words for each other on the bench during the following faceoff. Tampa Bay would take their lead into the second intermission.
Orlov took another penalty for the Sharks with 13:47 remaining in the third period, giving the Lightning another chance on the power play. The Sharks killed off the penalty, then Yanni Gourde was penalized for slashing. The Lightning penalty kill remained strong. With 7:52 remaining, Sam Dickinson tripped up Point, who went awkwardly into the boards but appeared to be okay.
Regenda finished off his hat trick, which led to fans throwing soccer balls, the giveaway for the night, onto the ice.
When all was said and done, the Lightning ended their California road trip with a seventh straight win, and it came in dominant fashion, with a final score of 7-3. The Lightning will be back in action on Tuesday as two of the top-scoring defensemen in the league, Raddysh and Cale Makar, face-off.