By Mike Bonts
LAS VEGAS (Florida Sports Wire) – The Tampa Bay Lightning was defeated 5-4 by the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The Lightning dropped to 35-17-3 overall and their road record fell to 14-13-1.
Tampa’s Vladislav Namestnikov opened the scoring with his 6th goal of the season as he redirected a shot into the top shelf.
Brett Howden tied the game at 1-1 with a goal just 7 seconds after the Lightning took a 1-0 lead. Howden and Namestnikov tied the record for the fastest 2 goals in the NHL this season which has been done three separate times.
Steven Stamkos scored a power-play goal, taking one-timer to give the Bolts a 2-1 lead at 6:57 of the first period.
Jonathan Marchessault evened the score to 2-2 at 8:17 of the first period. Shea Theodore gave the Golden Knights’ their first lead of the night with a goal at 14:20 of the first period.
Jonathan Marchessault extended Vegas’ lead to 4-2 with a goal at 17:46 of the first period.
Corey Perry notched his 2nd point of the night with his 11th goal of the season (11-12—23 pts.), coming at 4:29 of the second period to bring the Lightning within a goal.
Nicolas Roy scored an empty-net goal at 18:51 of the third period to make the score 5-3 Vegas.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored his 4th goal of the season with 11 seconds remaining to cut Vegas’ lead to 5-4.
Vegas outshot Tampa Bay 26-24, including a 10-9 advantage in the second period and a 6-5 advantage in the third period.
Lightning goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy had his 3-game winning streak come to an end as he stopped 21 of the 25 shots he faced.
The Lightning are back in action at AMALIE Arena on Tuesday night to battle the Anaheim Ducks @ 7 p.m. The Lightning defeated the Ducks in their only matchup this season by a score of 4-2 on October 26 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
NOTES: Tampa Bay slid to 19-7-2 against the Western Conference and 8-5-1 against Pacific Division opponents. The Bolts finished their four-game road trip with a record of 2-1-1 and killed all 10 penalties they took over the trip…Nikita Kucherov and Brandon Hagel led the Lightning with 3 shots each,,Ross Colton delivered a Tampa Bay game-high 5 hits..the Golden Knights and Bolts combined for three goals in 47 seconds which is the 2nd-fastest three goals scored in the NHL this season. The Hurricanes and enguins combined for three goals in 32 seconds on Dec. 22..
