“They came out flying in the first period, but we were able to make adjustments,” Gourde said. “We looked much better in the second. Our mentality has been defense first lately, and we’ve been executing defensively.”
Darren Raddysh had a goal and two assists, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves for his sixth consecutive win for the Lightning (15-7-2), who are 14-3-0 in their past 17 games after a 1-4-2 start.
“I’m not really trying to step up on offense,” said Raddysh, who has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in his past seven games. “I’m just playing my game. We’ve got a lot of guys who have been great while we’ve had guys hurt.”
Nikita Kucherov had two assists to extend his point streak to eight games (15 points; four goals, 11 assists), Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist, and Gage Goncalves and Brandon Hagel also scored for Tampa Bay.
“That was a pretty complete team effort,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “[Vasilevskiy] kept us close while we were shooting ourselves in the foot in the first period, and after we weathered that, we kind of took over from there.”
