Tampa Bay Lightning Hang up Six Goals Again in Win over Arizona

The Tampa Bay Lightning’s strong run of play continued Thursday night as the Lightning hung six goals on the board for the second straight game. Tampa Bay took care of business in beating the Arizona Coyotes 6-3 in what was the second game of a back-to-back for Arizona.

Darren Raddysh opened the scoring 24 seconds in on the first shot of the game. It was that kind of night for Tampa Bay as they would end up potting five more goals while getting contributions from up and down the lineup.

Big Guns are Rolling

It was a big night for the top players on Tampa Bay as Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov continue to skate together and produce. The trio combined for seven points on the night with three of them coming from Kucherov. Kucherov has seven points in his last two games and finds himself back in the lead for the league’s scoring title as him and Colorado’s Nathan Mackinnon are on serious tears.

Stamkos and Point both ended up with a goal and an assist. With Stamkos’ assisting on Kucherov’s one-timer goal in the second period, Stamkos collected the 1,100th point of his career. Stamkos would add another point five minutes later with a signature power play goal from the left circle.

Youth Showing up too

There have been a bunch of young players getting a chance to make their debuts and make a name for themselves this year with the Lightning. Thursday was another showcase of the depth coming up from Syracuse and having an impact.

Mitchell Chaffee was just called up on Wednesday and appeared in his second career game Thursday night. He recorded his first career goal and point in the second period and even added an assist in the third period on Luke Glendening’s goal in the third period.

To make Chafee’s goal even sweeter, both assists came from a pair of rookies as well. Max Crozier and Emil Lilleberg both factored in on the scoring. The assists marked the second point in both Crozier and Lilleberg’s career as well.

Keeping the Puck out of Net

While Tampa Bay has posted 12 goals in their last two games, one of the most impressive elements of their recent run has been how they have been able to keep the puck out of their own net. Tampa Bay has now gone eight consecutive games without giving up more than three goals and find themselves beginning to surge as a team.

Those eight games have not necessarily all been against the league’s best competition but there is a lot to like about how the Lightning’s game is trending defenseivley. The run is especially impressive with having two rookie defenseman paired together. Ever since giving up seven in Boston on January 6th, the Lightning have been doing an outstanding job of keeping games under control.