Pat Maroon scored twice, Steven Stamkos got one goal and one assist, and the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Washington Capitals 5-1 on Thursday night. Stamkos helped out with Alex Killorn’s goal in the middle of the first period then he put the Lightning ahead by two goals when he scored his 32nd of the season right at the very end.
Maroon, who had scored three goals before the game began, made two more in the third period. His first goal put Tampa Bay in the lead and his second came in with 3:32 to go, which secured their win. Erik Cernak added a final goal with 1:54 left after getting the puck from an empty-net.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 30 shots for the Lightning, so they won their second consecutive game after losing four times in a row.
Maroon says that, if the team defends and plays correctly, they can win. He continues to say that they have a lot of experienced members in their team, so they shouldn’t struggle like they were recently. Additionally, they are also playing more smartly with the puck now.
Craig Smith scored a goal, and the goalie Darcy Kuemper made 29 saves to help the Capitals win. Even so, they have only won 1 game in their last 7 trying times, which makes it harder for them to qualify for the playoffs in their conference. Despite not giving up hope, Smith shared that no one has given up here as there is “no quit” yet.
The Tampa Bay Lightning started strong by scoring first. This happened when Killorn touched a wrist shot from Sergachev that went past the goalie, Kuemper. Then, Stamkos scored another goal with a one-tap shot after Bellemare won the faceoff.
In the following period-the second period-the Washington Capitals picked up their game and scored one goal themselves. Smith sent in the puck off of Vasilevskiy’s left skate and it passed over the goal line in 3 minutes, 50 seconds!
The Capitals coach, Peter Laviolette, said the first period of the game was pretty tough. The team wanted to do better but couldn’t because they weren’t fast enough. Then 4:30 into the third period a Lightning player called Maroon took a rebound from Anthony Cirelli’s shot and scored two goals!
The Lightning coach, Jon Cooper, was really happy that his fourth line players scored some goals. He said they were working hard and in the right place near the net when the goals happened. As playoffs are coming up soon, Cirelli said it’s important to keep striving for working hard and playing good defense as a team.
The Capitals player, T.J. Oshie, said that it’s important for them to be difficult to play against and limit the chances of being scored on during 5-on-5 periods. Recently they’ve been doing this really well but need to keep working hard at it to take things up a notch. Sadly, in the first period of the game, he got an injury which meant he had to leave the match and didn’t come back.
Alex Ovechkin from Washington attempted two shots on goal, with a career-high of 11 hits, but unfortunately the Capitals lost and now have a record of 2-7-1 in back-to-back sets. The victory for Vasilevskiy was his 221st since 2017-18 season; which is higher than Connor Hellebuyck of Winnipeg Jets who has 194 wins.
This weekend, the New York Rangers will play a game at the Capital’s arena on Sunday. The New York Islanders will also have a game against the Lightning team on Saturday night at their own arena. To know more about NHL news and games, you can check out websites like AP NHL at apnews.com/hub/NHL or follow them on Twitter @AP_Sports.
