The Tampa Bay Lightning got their three-game California road trip started off right last night with a 5-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks.
The Bolts are now back on top of the National Hockey League standings with a 12-2-2 record (26 points) through 16 games. The Sharks fell to 8-6-0 on the year and are eight points behind the first place Kings in the Pacific Division.
Although offensive production turned out to be quite limited for San Jose throughout the contest, they did manage to record the first goal of the game very early on. Joonas Donskoi scored his fifth goal of the season 25 seconds into the game, giving the Sharks their only lead.
Tampa Bay did not panic and eventually knotted up the score with Jake Dotchin's first NHL goal 7:17 into the opening period. That would be the end of scoring in the first, however, it would set up a big middle period for the Lightning.
The Lightning would score three goals in the second period, from the hands of Nikita Kucherov, Slater Koekkoek, and Vladislav Namestnikov to give Tampa Bay a 4-1 lead heading into the final period. Namestnikov would provide another goal in the third period to put an exclamation point on an impressive victory.
The top line truly shined for the Bolts last night as Steven Stamkos, Kucherov, and Namestnikov all recorded three points. Namestnikov had two goals and an assist, Kucherov had a goal and two assists, and Stamkos added to his assist totals with three.
Andrei Vasilevskiy also put together a strong game after surrendering a very early goal to the opposition. He finished the contest with 32 saves on 33 shots.
The Lightning will not be able to enjoy last night's win for very long as they take on a very tough Los Angeles Kings team tonight at the Staples Center. It will be interesting to see how the Bolts will perform on the second night of a back-to-back against one of the top-three teams in the NHL.