By Michael Wax
Back-to-back wins for the Lightning on home ice, with a great defensive performance as well, as they defeated the Penguins 3-1. Here's how they stacked up:
Stamkos-Point-Kucherov
Hagel-Cirelli-ABB
Jeannot-Paul-Eyssimont
Watson-Glendening-Motte
Hedman-Perbix
Sergachev-Cernak
de Haan-Raddysh
Vasilevskiy
Here are our three biggest takeaways:
Italian Noises
Coming into this game, the leader for the Lightning in goals scored over the past five games may have surprised most of the fanbase. It wasn't Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, or Braden Point; it was Anthony Cirelli. Cirelli came into this one with three goals in his past five games and would add another early on.
What time winding down on the game's first power play, Cirelli parked himself right in front of the net and received a Victor Hedman wrist shot that deflected past Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry.
For Cirelli, it was his first power-play goal since Nov. 9 against Chicago, which was also his last goal before he went on this little recent streak. A goalscoring Cirelli is good for the Lightning, which desperately needs depth scoring, and is good for Cirelli if he wants to be nationally recognized in Selke Trophy voting.
Helping Hand
Nikita Kucherov, once again, showcased why he is leading the NHL in scoring and is the early front-runner for the Hart Trophy. He picked up another two points, an assist on Cirelli's power-play goal, and a power-play goal of his own in the second period. Let's talk about the assist.
With that assist, Kucherov registered at least one assist in his 11th consecutive game. 11 games in a row is now the franchise record, breaking the tie with Martin St. Louis (2006-07/2009-10) and Brad Richards (2005-06), who both had streaks of 10 games in a row with an assist.
While he has a ways to go to catch Wayne Gretzky's all-time record with 19 consecutive games with an assist, he's on his way.
Playing as One
The talk around this team since the beginning of the season has been team defense. We saw last year how this team can perform, and we know they have very talented players. But from the early onset, it did feel like the team was having difficulty adjusting to a new defensive system, which came to a head during the ugly 8-1 loss against Dallas on Saturday. It felt like the team was having difficulty with their defense. Since then, the defense has been great.
Coming into this week, the Lightning were 30th in the entire NHL in goals allowed. That has dropped to a tie for 25th after a combined one goal in two games. While they have certainly had their fair share of bad shifts, the defense overall has done an excellent job of eliminating chances over the past two games. Much of that can be attributed to the play of Eric Cernak, who has been rock-solid over the past two games.
In all honesty, this game should've also been a shutout. But a bad decision by Andrei Vasilevskiy to leave the crease allowed Pittsburgh to score with less than a minute remaining. Things still aren't perfect, but the past two games give plenty of reason for optimism.
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