The Lightning’s downward spiral continued Sunday, January 5th, suffering a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center. Jake Guentzel’s goal provided a fleeting moment of brilliance, but it was ultimately a solitary spark in an otherwise dismal performance as Tampa Bay took their fourth straight loss. Frank Vatrano, who earlier in the day signed a three-year contract extension with Anaheim, fueled the Ducks’ victory with a pair of goals, while John Gibson, a stalwart in the net, earned his 200th NHL career win, making 33 saves to guide the Ducks to victory. This has been the first time this season that the Lightning lost four straight games in regulation. On Tuesday, the Lightning will head home to host the Carolina Hurricanes in search of a win to snap their losing streak, while the Ducks hope to grab another two points when they host the Calgary Flames.
Tampa Bay Lightning Lineup:
Guentzel – Point – Kucherov
Hagel – Cirelli – Geekie
Chaffee – Paul – Eyssimont
Girgensons – Glendening – Goncalves
Hedman – Raddysh
McDonagh – Cernak
Lilleberg – Perbix
Johansson
Vasilevskiy
Anaheim Ducks Lineup:
Vatrano – Strome – Terry
Killorn – Carlsson – Leason
Gauthier – McTavish – Fabbri
Harkins – Lundestrom – Nesterenko
Dumoulin – Trouba
LaCombe – Gudas
Zellweger – Helleson
Gibson
Dostal
Getting the party started, Troy Terry opened the scoring at 14:36 of the first period to put Anaheim ahead 1-0 with his 14th goal of the season. Terry took Ryan Strome’s drop pass at the blue line, scoring on a wrister from the right circle after slowly skating to it, and it went in off Jonas Johansson’s arm. The Lightning did not record their first shot on goal until 9:24 on the clock in the first frame. With little time left in the opening 20, Jacob Trouba fired the puck from above the left circle and Frank Vatrano tipped it in to find the back of the net, extending the Ducks’ lead to 2-0 with 2:57 left to play in the first period.
Jake Guentzel struck the one and only goal for Tampa Bay with 10:48 remaining in the middle frame to cut it to 2-1. After some passing back and forth, Guentzel sent the puck over to Nikita Kucherov, who moved down below the right circle before passing it back to Guentzel, who was originally behind the net. Guentzel then buried a one-timer for his 21st goal of the season after skating into the right circle on the power play.
With 3:34 remaining in the third, Jackson LaCombe pushed it to 3-1 off Alex Killorn’s pass as they both drove up into Tampa Bay’s zone on a 2-on-1, and LaCombe found the back of the net with a one-timer for his eighth of the season. Frank Vatrano struck his second of the night with little time left in regulation when he scored on the Lightning’s empty net for the 4-1 final.
Notes:
– Jonas Johansson made a total of 22 saves for Tampa Bay.
– Erik Cernak skated in his 400th NHL career game.
– Both Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point recorded the assists on Jake Guentzel’s goal.
– The Lightning outshot the Anaheim Ducks 32-24 in the final two periods.
– The Lightning had won the eight previous games against the Anaheim Ducks.
– Tampa Bay was 1-for-1 on the penalty kill, and they haven’t allowed a power-play goal in their past six games; 14-for-14.
– Troy Terry recorded a goal and picked up an assist, and Ryan Strome collected a pair of assists. …With his two assists, Strome extended his point streak to five games; two goals and five assists.
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