The Tampa Bay Lightning (17-5-2) put an end to their two-game losing streak, shutting out the Buffalo Sabres (6-15-4) 2-0 at KeyBank Center on Tuesday night.
The big story of the low-scoring affair was Bolts' netminder, Andrei Vasilevskiy, who faced 34 shots on goal and stopped them all. The Sabres outshot the Lightning 34-26 and could have handed Tampa Bay their third consecutive defeat if it were not for the stellar play of Vasilevskiy. The Lightning netminder is now 16-3-1 on the season.
As for goal-scoring, it was all about contributions from the Tampa Bay blue line. Rookie Mikhail Sergachev opened up the game with his sixth of the season 16:29 into the first period on a power play.
The second and final goal of the night would belong to the Lightning newcomer, Dan Girardi. Yes, I said that correctly, Dan Girardi. The veteran defenseman potted his first goal of the season to give his team a 2-0 12:08 into the middle period.
The top line of the Lightning was once again held without a goal and had to rely on secondary scoring to get the job done. It's always nice to get some offense from your defensemen, but the Bolts need to start getting more offense from forwards with names other than Stamkos, Kucherov, and Namestnikov.
Either way, the Lightning will take a victory no matter how it's achieved.
Tampa Bay will look to keep things rolling when they take on the Boston Bruins tonight. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 PM ET.