Brayden Point’s second-round shootout goal and a 36-save effort by Andrei Vasilevskiy lifted the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning to a 3-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.
The win was the Lightning’s second straight after a two-game skid.
Erik Cernak and Nikita Kucherov scored Tampa Bay’s goals during regulation.
Cernak’s game-opening goal was his first marker of the season, while Kucherov reached the 90-point mark in a single season faster than any player in Lightning history, doing so in his 53rd game.
Vasilevskiy stood tall as Boston held a 38-25 edge in shots. He made 10 stops in the third period and six in overtime.
The Bruins were 0-for-6 on the power play.
Charlie McAvoy and James van Riemsdyk each scored for Boston, which has lost three of its past four games.
Brad Marchand — who became the eighth player to skate in 1,000 career games with the Bruins — and David Pastrnak each assisted on both of Boston’s goals.
Marchand nearly ended the game with 18 seconds left in overtime when Pastrnak fed him for a point-blank shot that clanked off the crossbar.
Boston goaltender Linus Ullmark made 23 saves.
The Lightning drew first blood 3:21 in as Brandon Hagel won a puck battle along the wall in the neutral zone and fed Cernak, who let a wrister go from the top of the right circle that trickled by Ullmark. A review determined the puck completely crossed the goal line.
Kucherov doubled Tampa’s lead with a power-play goal at 1:06 of the second. After a failed clearing attempt, the NHL’s points leader collected the puck out of a wild net-front scramble and potted it inside the right post from the right circle.
Just 58 seconds later, McAvoy trimmed Boston’s deficit to 2-1 when his slap shot from the right point sailed through traffic and past Vasilevskiy.
The Bruins tied the score with 3:37 left in the second as van Riemsdyk positioned himself at the top of the crease to knock home the rebound of Marchand’s shot from the side.
Ullmark’s work in the minutes after Boston’s first third-period power play included a flashing glove save on Kucherov. At 5:19, Michael Eyssimont lowered his shoulder on the goaltender and the officials waved off the net-mouth rebound goal.
–Field Level Media
