By Michael Wax
Backed by a hat trick from Nikita Kucherov and another solid performance in net from Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning ended their road trip on a winning note with a 6-3 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers. Here's how they stacked up going 11/7:
Stamkos-Point-Kucherov
Hagel-Cirelli-Eyssimont
Sheary-Paul
Motte-Glendening-ABB
Hedman-Raddysh
de Haan-Perbix
Lilleberg-Crozier
Myers
Vasilevskiy in goal.
Here are our three biggest takeaways:
Hart Attack
The scoring race has essentially been a two-horse race between Nikita Kucherov and the Avalanches' Nathan MacKinnon. After MacKinnon took hold of the lead with a four-point night against the Flyers, Kucherov decided to take back the scoring lead with his own four-point night against those same Flyers.
Kucherov would put up the fifth hat trick of his career, also getting his 80th point of the season in the process.
Kucherov's second goal of the game, which was also his 30th goal of the season, gave him his seventh 30-goal season of his career, second only behind teammate and captain Steven Stamkos (who has eight). On that play, he took a page out of fellow countryman Alex Ovechkin's book, sliding into a place of the ice hidden away from the defense before being found wide-open on the backdoor by Brayden Point.
Kucherov's lone non-goal was one of the slickest passes of the season, taking a rocket from Victor Hedman off the boards and one-touching the puck over to Mikey Eyssimont, who redirected the puck past Flyers' goalie Sam Errson for the Lightning's fourth goal.
Even Jon Cooper is at a loss for words of how good Kucherov has been this year:
One more note: Kucherov’s second goal was his 300th career power-play points, becoming the third player in Lightning history to hit at least 300 power-play points (Stamkos at 409, St. Louis at 300).
Mad Max
With each rookie, there's always a moment where it's evident to the fanbase that the rookie has found their footing. The timing also varies. With Merelä, it was his first career goal last week. For Lilleberg, it was the giant hit he put on in just his fourth career game. Well, this one was the Max Crozier game.
Just 1:40 into the game, the Lightning found themselves in the Flyers' zone. After Kucherov took the puck and looked to complete a spin-o-rama pass, the puck bounced around in the slot area. When it squirted free, Crozier pinched a bit and put the right amount of strength on his shot-pass for Brayden Point to deflect it home.
Defensively, Crozier and his partner Lilleberg were excellent at limiting the Flyers at well. Crozier would finish as the defender with the highest game score on the Lightning:
With Cernak returning soon, Crozier's time with the big club might be coming to an end. But it's safe to say he's made quite the impression on the coaching staff:
Quality Wins
Going forward, the Lightning need to find ways to win not just against bad teams (Sabres was a great example), but need to beat quality teams. Thanks to winning five of six, nto only are they mostly in the drivers' seat for the wild card spots, but are now third in the Atlantic in front of Toronto (though Toronto has games in hand). This was a good start, as the Flyers were second in the Metro coming into this game and the Lightning (stressfully) handled business.
The next home stand for the Lightning before the All-Star break has the Bolts facing the Coyotes and Devils, two teams who are also in the playoff race for their respective conferences. The Lightning did lose to the Coyotes early in the year, and have the upper hand on the Devils so far. The All-Star break should provide a big-time rest for these guys, but they need to give a solid 120 minutes between the two games to go into the break feeling good about themselves.
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