Brayden Point netted his team-leading 29th goal, rookie Nick Perbix had a career-high three assists, and the Tampa Bay Lightning set a franchise record with their 12th consecutive home win, topping the Los Angeles Kings 5-2 on Saturday night.
By sweeping their three-game homestand and moving to 20-4-1 at home, the Lightning broke the record of 11 wins in a row from Dec. 23, 2019, to Feb. 15, 2020. They also split the season series with the Kings.
Tampa Bay’s Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Corey Perry, Ross Colton and Victor Hedman potted even-strength markers. Steven Stamkos stretched his point streak to 11 games with a helper. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (23-12-1) made 26 saves.
Winners of eight of their past 10 games, the Lightning finished January at 9-4-0 and are 16-6-0 against the Western Conference.
Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Phillip Danault scored goals for Los Angeles. Forward Rasmus Kupari played in his 100th career game, and Jonathan Quick stopped 20 shots.
The Kings fell to 2-2-3 in the second game of a back-to-back set.
In their final game before the All-Star break, the Lightning took advantage of a sloppy pass by the Kings’ Sean Walker to grab a 1-0 lead at 5:02 of the first.
The defenseman’s pass behind Quick’s net hit the wall and struck the cage — leaving it behind the net. Kucherov retrieved it and fed Point, who jammed it in.
Tampa Bay added on when Perbix stole a pass and found Bellemare. The French-born winger zipped in his third goal at 6:21 to push the lead to 2-0.
But Anderson-Dolan cut the lead in half with a shot from the left circle that handcuffed Vasilevskiy. The puck then trundled between the netminder’s pads and across the goal line for Anderson-Dolan’s sixth goal at 10:12.
With just over four minutes left, Perry found the net for the ninth time with a putback of Perbix’s shot to reestablish the two-goal gap.
In the second period, Colton found himself alone in front of Quick, snagged a rebound and potted his 10th marker at 15:20 to give the home side a comfortable three-goal lead.
However, Danault backhanded a pass into the slot in the final minute. Tampa Bay defenseman Ian Cole inadvertently put it into the net for Danault’s 14th.
–Field Level Media
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