A four goal third period elevated the Tampa Bay Lightning from a lackluster first couple of periods as the Bolts beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-4 Thursday night in Motown.Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Tyler Johnson took Tampa Bay from a 3-1 deficit to a 4-3 advantage in a seven minute span of the final period silencing the home town crowd and matching a franchise record for single-season wins.
Tampa Bay didn’t play well early in the contest as the struggling Red Wings found the back of the net for the first three goals of the game.Madison Bowey scored his first goal in a Detroit uniform to give Detroit an early 1-0 lead just under three minutes into the game.Darren Helm scored shorthanded to make it 2-0 Detroit only to be followed by a goal by Justin Abdelkader extending the lead to 3-0.For Abdelkader it was his first goal in his last 40 games.
Detroit entered the game dropping 11 of their last 12 eliminating the Red Wings from post season contention for the third straight season.
The Tampa Bay Lightning found themselves down in a situation where they rarely are in any game this season, down multiple goals on the road.However the Bolts came roaring back to score five answered goals beginning with a franchise tying goal by Steven Stamkos tying him with Vincent LeCavalier for the most goals in a Lightning jersey at 383 career goals.Stamkos achieved the mark in 302 less games than the other former first round pick.
That score opened up the flood gates for Point, Kucherov, and Johnson to all score in a third period which they outshot the Red Wings 14-10.
The Lighting sweep the season series against Detroit winning all four games and extend their winning streak over Detroit to 15 games.
Anderi Vasilevskiy had 23 saves on 27 Detroit shots on goal.
Kucherov with another massive game with two goals and two assists giving him an NHL leading 115 points on the season, including 34 points in his past 16 games.
The Lightning will host Washington on Saturday night at Amalie Arena.
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