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The Tampa Bay Lightning extended its season-long point streak to seven games with a 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night. The Bolts have now won two-straight games and five of their last seven. In addition, they have won three games in a row at AMALIE Arean, tying their longest home winning streak of the season.

How About Those Triplets

Tampa Bay's victory over the Oilers last night can pretty much be credited to the magnificent play that came from "The Triplets". Nikita Kucherov, Tyler Johnson, and Ondrej Palat combined for eight of the nine points acquired by Lightning players.

Palat provided the first two goals of the contest, giving Tampa a 2-0 lead for a fourth consecutive game. Johnson promoted the importance of sharing, contributing to the team's efforts with two assists. As has been the case plenty of times before, Kucherov stole the show recording four points. He scored a goal in the third period to make it 3-1 and assisted on all the others, making last night his 13th multi-point game of the season.

Defensive Transformation

For most of the season, the defensive play of the Tampa Bay Lightning has been their kryptonite. Both forwards and blueliners alike struggled in this area of play until recently. It now appears that the Bolts have finally made the necessary improvements and it is starting to show on the ice.

The Lightning are doing a much better job getting to the necessary areas, stopping the opposition from progressing the puck, blocking shots, and just plain eliminating opportunities. In addition, Tampa Bay is being much more careful in their own zone, committing far less costly turnovers.

Tampa Bay has also made drastic improvements on the penalty kill. The Bolts have not allowed the opposition to score a power-play goal in four-straight games and the six of their last seven.

Of course, every team is still going to have lapses, even when they have shown improvements. However, the Lightning must continue this strong defensive play if they want a serious shot at getting back into the playoff race.

Making it Interesting

Listen, the Lightning still have a lot to do if they want to get themselves into the playoff picture before season's end. It is not going to be easy and may prove to be unobtainable. Still, the Bolts are at least making things interesting with this current point-streak. They are currently four points behind the final wild card spot and have to jump over four teams to acquire it.

On Tap

Tampa Bay continues its four-game home stand on Thursday when it takes on the Calgary Flames at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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