Brandon Hagel scored two goals as the surging Tampa Bay Lightning extended their winning streak to seven games with a 4-1 victory Saturday over the New York Rangers, who continued their home woes.
Hagel scored a goal for the fifth straight game and registered his third multi-goal game in that span as Tampa Bay also improved to 15-3-0 in their past 18 games following a 1-4-2 start.
Hagel produced his fourth multi-goal game this season by scoring with 9:07 left in the first and with 11:03 remaining in the second.
Nick Paul scored early in the third as Tampa Bay was on its way to avenging an earlier 7-3 home loss to the Rangers. Jake Guentzel finished it off on an empty-net goal with 17.4 seconds left.
Nikita Kucherov collected three assists and extended his points streak to nine games. He has four goals and 14 assists during the streak.
Darren Raddysh had three assists after scoring twice in Friday’s 6-3 win at Detroit.
Tampa Bay earned its sixth win of the streak by at least two goals and is outscoring opponents 29-10 during the run of success.
Tampa Bay backup goalie Jonas Johansson stopped 10 shots while New York’s Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves.
The Rangers fell to 2-8-1 at home, in complete contrast to their 11-4-1 mark on the road. New York did not get its first shot on goal until 10:31 left in the first period and got its 10th shot with about six minutes left in the third.
New York also lost defenseman Adam Fox for the final 12:57 after he took a hit from Hagel into the boards.
Tampa Bay took the first eight shots on goal and capitalized on an errant clearing try by the Rangers.
Defenseman Carson Soucy tried to get the puck out of the defensive zone but his pass for Mika Zibaenejad was intercepted by Hagel. Hagel quickly moved to the middle of the slot, took a pass from Raddysh and his off-balance shot deflected off Soucy’s skate and by Shesterkin.
Hagel scored again after getting a long pass from Kucherov out of the defensive zone. He was a few strides ahead of New York defenseman Will Borgen in the middle of the slot and his initial breakaway attempt was stopped before Hagel chipped in the rebound.
Miller re-directed a pass from Fox after getting positioning on the right side of the crease from Tampa Bay defenseman Emil Lilleberg with 2:29 remaining but Paul re-directed Kucherov’s pass 2:02 into the third.
–Field Level Media
