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Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 38 shots for his league-leading 17th
victory in the final game before the NHL's extended holiday
break. The game was the only one of 10 on the Tuesday schedule
that wasn't postponed due to COVID-19 issues, and the entire
Wednesday and Thursday slates were scrapped ahead of a planned
weekend hiatus.
Gabriel Fortier, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Anthony Cirelli
also scored goals for Tampa Bay, which earned its third straight
win and eighth in the past nine games. The Lightning go into the
break with an NHL-best 44 points.
Vasilevskiy improved to 7-0-0 in December while improving his
NHL calendar-year record for 2021 (regular season and playoffs)
to 64-21-4.
Mark Stone, who departed after the 6:24 mark of the second
period because of an injury, scored two goals and Nicolas Roy
also scored for Vegas, which had a five-game winning streak
snapped. Shea Theodore notched two assists, and Laurent Brossoit
finished with 15 saves.
Tampa Bay took a 1-0 lead at the 6:05 mark of the first period
on Fortier's first career NHL goal. The winger fired a wrist
shot from the left circle past Brossoit's blocker side.
Vegas dominated the rest of the period, outshooting the
Lightning 17-5 overall. Despite that, the Golden Knights managed
just a power-play goal by Stone to tie it 1-1 at the 9:26 mark.
Stone, left alone in the slot, made it 2-1 early in the second
period with his sixth goal of the season. He fired a wrist shot
through Vasilevskiy's pads.
Roy then made it 3-1 at 8:10 of the second when he deked Victor
Hedman and split a pair of Lightning defenders before roofing a
shot past Vasilevskiy's glove side.
Tampa Bay came back to tie it with two goals in a 43-second span
later in the period. Bellemare got the first, his third of the
season and 50th of his career, at 17:07. He one-timed a shot
from the slot off a Corey Perry feed from behind the net.
Cirelli followed with his ninth goal of the season, when he
backhanded in a loose puck near the right post.
Stamkos then gave the Lightning a 4-3 lead at 10:13 of the third
period on a man advantage. He one-timed a Hedman feed from the
left circle past Brossoit's blocker side for his 14th goal of
the season.
Vegas played without defenseman Alex Pietrangelo and forward
Evgenii Dadonov who along Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper entered
COVID protocol on Tuesday. Assistant Derek Lalonde handled
head-coaching duties for Cooper.
--Field Level Media
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