Defenseman Darren Raddysh recorded his first hat trick as the Tampa Bay Lightning swarmed the host San Jose Sharks from the start to spark a 7-3 rout on Saturday afternoon.
The Lightning’s Brayden Point, Raddysh and Brandon Hagel scored in the opening 6:46 as Tampa Bay extended its winning streak to a season-high-tying seven games.
The Lightning climbed into first place in the Eastern Conference ahead of the Detroit Red Wings, who lost 4-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, by bombarding the Sharks for five scores inside the match’s first 24 minutes.
Stretching his point streak to five games, Nikita Kucherov crafted a five-point showing with a tally and four assists. Point had an assist to go with his goal.
Dominic James scored once while Jake Guentzel and Oliver Bjorkstrand posted two assists apiece. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 19 shots.
San Jose’s Pavol Regenda notched his first hat trick to give him five goals in four games, but the club lost for the first time in its four outings since the holiday break. Timothy Liljegren and Jeff Skinner had two assists apiece.
Macklin Celebrini had a helper to extend his point streak to 10 games that have produced 20 points — seven goals and 13 assists.
Goalie Yaroslav Askarov started but surrendered three markers in 10 shots. Alex Nedeljkovic replaced him and made 12 saves on 16 shots.
To open Tampa Bay’s final outing on its three-game West Coast trip, Point fired an accurate shot in the top-right corner at 2:37 and Raddysh scored 91 seconds later. Hagel’s tally at 6:46 was enough to chase Askarov and force coach Joel Quenneville to insert Nedeljkovic.
San Jose found some life when Regenda trickled in a shot at 10:50 on the team’s first power play.
At 2:49 of the second period, Raddysh increased it to 4-1 with a power-play marker. James grabbed a turnover and found the twine just 1:06 later for a 5-1 lead.
Liljegren’s close shot was redirected by Regenda at 9:50 for the Slovakian winger’s second marker, but Kucherov made it 2-for-2 on the power play at 14:48 for a 6-2 lead. Raddysh scored at 16:53 on the man advantage for the Lightning’s fourth goal in the frame.
Regenda wrapped up his first hat trick with 3:49 to play.
–Field Level Media
