Anthony Cirelli scored a go-ahead power-play goal with 3:15 left, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman recorded milestone points and the Tampa Bay Lightning were victorious for the first time on home ice, 4-3, over the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.
Cirelli’s game-winner, his second goal in a three-point night, came on the Lightning’s sixth power-play opportunity.
In the second period in a 1-1 match, Kucherov, who had two assists, reached 1,000 career points with the secondary helper on Jake Guentzel’s second marker, with the entire team jumping onto the ice to celebrate with the star right wing. Kucherov joined former Tampa Bay star Steven Stamkos as the only players to reach 1,000 points with the franchise.
Hedman (two assists) added his 800th career point on Cirelli’s first tally in close on goaltender Lukas Dostal (29 saves) for a 3-1 lead.
Brandon Hagel notched two assists to give him 300 career points for the Lightning, who won for the first time in four home outings (1-3-0).
With the Lightning on the front end of a back-to-back and facing the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, backup Jonas Johansson got the start in place of No. 1 netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy and made 37 saves.
Jacob Trouba, Ryan Poehling and Troy Terry (assist) scored for Anaheim, which lost in regulation for the first time on its five-game road swing (2-1-1) that ends Tuesday night at the Florida Panthers.
Guentzel generated a great chance on a rush in the first period, firing a puck that deflected into and off Dostal. Guentzel then popped the loose puck into the open cage for a three-game points streak at 9:10.
As the home side’s second power play ended, Anaheim’s Jackson LaCombe fed a pass to Mason McTavish as he exited the penalty box. However, Johansson stuffed his backhanded partial breakaway attempt at 13:26.
Anaheim tied it on Trouba’s shot on the short side of Johansson off a dish from Terry at 4:42, but Tampa Bay netted two goals aided by the two history-making assists 2:01 apart.
In the third, Poehling and Terry tallied 59 seconds apart to tie it 3-all with just over half the period remaining before Cirelli’s late winner.
