Devils Struck By Lightning Early And Often In 8-3 Loss
TAMPA, Fla. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Tampa Bay's Brayden Point had a career-high five points, with a goal and four assists, as the Lightning rallied from an early two-goal deficit to beat up on the New Jersey Devils 8-3 Tuesday night.
"We controlled the majority of the play," Lightning star Steven Stamkos said.
Point has seven goals and seven assists in 11 games this season.
"He's a real tenacious player," Devils coach John Hynes said. "He's extremely competitive. He's a high-skilled player that plays the game the right way all the time. He's a difficult player to play against."
Nikita Kucherov had two goals and an assist, and Tyler Johnson and Ryan McDonagh had the other Lightning goals. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves.
Kucherov left with 6 minutes left in the second after taking a shot near the inside of his left knee but returned early in the third.
Miles Wood, Travis Zajac and Kyle Palmieri scored for the Devils, who started a seven-game trip. Keith Kinkaid stopped only 31 of 38 shots before being replaced five minutes into the third by Cory Schneider, who allowed a goal on six shots in his first game after offseason hip surgery.
"In general, we weren't good enough to be able to win the game," Hynes said. "They were better, basically, in every facet of the game. We've got to learn lessons from it and address some things. We've got some things to talk about tomorrow."
"The game just slipped away," New Jersey center Nico Hischier said. "We didn't play our game. We stopped forechecking, we stopped hitting them."
Tampa Bay's penalty kill had not allowed a goal in 24 chances at home before Palmieri got his ninth goal, which cut the deficit to 5-3 on the Devils' second power play late in the second. Taylor Hall assisted and extended his point streak to eight games (10 assists, 12 points).
Johnson, Kucherov and McDonagh all scored in the third.
NOTES:
Devils LW Marcus Johansson (illness) returned after missing one game, D Ben Lovejoy (lower body) was activated off injured reserve and D Eric Gryba was assigned to Binghamton of the AHL.
UP NEXT:
The Devils play Thursday night at Detroit.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
