Steven Stamkos scored twice and Ben Bishop stopped all 28 shots he faced to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning over the Chicago Blackhawks 4-0 at Amalie Arena tonight. It was Bishop’s second Shutout of the season.
The Lightning finish up a trying month of February 6-4-2 in 12 games, all against tough Western Conference opponents.
The scoreless first period saw the Lightning miss on many good scoring chances and get only two shots on goal during a four minute power play. Tampa Bay’s penalty kill remained solid as they killed off all three of the Blackhawks power plays. Goalie Ben Bishop was especially sharp in the period, stopping all ten of Chicago’s shots. The Blackhawks got a break as Nikita Kucherov scored just after the period ended.
The second period saw the Lightning begin to take over with their speed.The Lightning drew first blood as Brian Boyle scored his 13th of the season from Jonathan Drouin at 8:27. The fourth line had been playing well and Drouin pressured, forced a turnover and fed it out front via a behind-the-back pass to Boyle who beat Blackhawks goalie Scott Darling five hole.
With Chicago’s Duncan Keith just coming out of the box for interference, Steven Stamkos scored his 33rd goal of the season on a deflection of a Jason Garrison slapshot at 17:53. Nikita Nesterov got the secondary assist. For Stamkos, it was his 16th point in nine career games versus Chicago.
At this point in the contest, shots were 21-18 in favor of the Blackhawks.
At 7:37 of the third period, the Bolts finally clicked on a power play with the Blackhawks Kris Versteeg in the box. Ryan Callahan scored his 19th of the year from Valtteri Filppula and Tyler Johnson. Filppula passed the puck to the crease where it hit Callahan’s stick and went in for a 3-0 Lightning lead.
Steven Stamkos scored his second of the game and 34th of the year as he blasted one past Darling from the right circle at 17:15 to secure the Lightning victory. The power play goal was assisted by Jason Garrison and Victor Hedman.
It was one of the Lightning’s beat overall games of the season. The offense played well and broke out of the power play slump, scoring twice with the man advantage. The goaltending was superior and the defense was outstanding, killing all three penalties and allowing only ten scoring chances.
Luke Witkowski (healthy), Brenden Morrow (healthy), Radko Gudas (knee surgery, walking without crutches) and Matt Carle (abdominal surgery, skating in a no-contact jersey) were the scratches.
The Lightning will visit the Florida Panthers Sunday night.
(Feature Photograph/Getty Images)
Follow me on Twitter @LightningShout and please “like” LightningShout on Facebook. You can email us at [email protected].
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
