Tampa Bay's Blake Coleman and Tyler Johnson each notched a goal and an assist in the host Lightning's 6-3 win over the injury-riddled Nashville Predators on Saturday night.
In moving to 10-1-0 on home ice, the Lightning got markers from Mathieu Joseph, Alex Killorn, Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli. Erik Cernak and Ondrej Palat each produced two assists.
In his eighth straight win, Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 28 of 31 shots to record his NHL-leading 17th win and go to 17-3-1.
The victory improved Tampa Bay's record to 5-0-0 against Nashville this season and 9-1-1 overall in its last 11 games.
Yakov Trenin collected a goal and assist -- dishing out the helper on Alexandre Carrier's first career tally -- and Erik Haula scored on the power play for Nashville, which slipped to 1-5-1 in March and 1-2-1 on its seven-game road trip.
Pekka Rinne (6-11-1) worked his seventh straight game in goal and allowed five goals on 27 shots.
Defenseman Dante Fabbro missed his second of a two-game suspension for elbowing. The blue line was additionally weakened by playing without starters Ryan Ellis, Mark Borowiecki and captain Roman Josi.
The Predators skated with three rookies on the blue line, including 23-year-old Frederic Allard. In his NHL debut, Allard registered 16:59 of ice time.
Before the puck drop in front of a small group of fans, the Lightning raised their 2019-20 Stanley Cup championship banner to the Amalie Arena rafters, celebrating their second title that they won in September over the Dallas Stars in six games.
Johnson made a great individual effort pay off while tangled up with Nashville defenseman Ben Harpur and sliding near Rinne in the opening period. Johnson tapped in Cernak's pass on an odd-man rush at 6:55 for his sixth goal.
Tampa Bay moved ahead 2-0 at 18:35 when Joseph's long shot hit the stick of Predators defenseman Mattias Ekholm and beat Rinne -- Joseph's sixth goal overall and third against Nashville this season.
In the second period, Killorn notched his seventh goal at 2:24 on the power play -- the club's fifth straight game scoring on the man advantage -- and Point scored late in the frame, but Trenin put the visitors on the board between the Tampa Bay tallies with a wrister off a pass from Viktor Arvidsson.
After Carrier scored at 3:17 of the third, Haula's goal at 5:03 trimmed the score to 4-3, but Coleman converted at 10:02 to regain the two-goal edge. Cirelli scored into an empty net at 18:26 to seal it.
--Field Level Media
Nashville | Tampa Bay | |
Yakov Trenin 2 | Points | Blake Coleman 2 |
Yakov Trenin 1 | Goals | Blake Coleman 1 |
Yakov Trenin 1 | Assists | Erik Cernak 2 |
Erik Haula 1 | Power Play Goals | Alex Killorn 1 |
N/A | Short Handed Goals | N/A |
Pekka Rinne .815 | Save Percentage | Andrei Vasilevskiy .903 |
Pekka Rinne 22 | Saves | Andrei Vasilevskiy 28 |
Team | Shots | Goals | Power Play | Penalty Kill | Penalty Mins | Face Offs Won |
Nashville | 31 | 3 | 1-2 | 0-1 | 2 | 25 |
Tampa Bay | 28 | 6 | 1-1 | 1-2 | 4 | 25 |