Tampa Bay Lightning Reach Their 60th Win of the Season, Beat Senators, 5-2

The Tampa Bay Lightning became only the third team in the history of the NHL to reach 60 wins in one season. Last night the Lightning defeated Ottawa Senators with 5-2, and joined an elite club of franchises which has only two members beside them.

Before Jon Cooper’s boys, Montreal Canadiens in 1977 and Detroit Red Wings in 1996 managed to achieve such a success, and enter hockey history books. Now they have a new companion.

Tampa Bay’s coach was cheerful after the match with the Senators, saying that the players deserve all the credits. He stressed out the fact that winning games in a tough environment such as NHL is a great accomplishment.

“Winning 60, you’ve got to give a ton of credit to those players,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “From being in the league a while now and understanding what a grind it is to play 82 with the schedule and everything and to win three out of every four and to do it all year long.”

And the Lightning was dominant all year long. Not for one moment did this team showed any signs of struggle, or had some cold-streak. All the players were giving their best, and when one had a rough time, another stepped up and pushed the crew forward.

It was no different against the Senators who fought bravely, but didn’t stand a chance against the league leaders.

Yanni Gourde scored the first of his two goals last night, after 12:04 in the first period, and opened this match. The hosts managed to tie the result through a fantastic teenager, Bradley Tkachuk.

The 19-year old has been excellent in his rookie season, and this was his 21st goal, which is the new franchise record for the Senators.

The second sequence was all about the guests who netted twice and broke the resistance of the home team. Mikhail Sergachev brought back the lead to the Lightning, after a nice wrist shot from the point, while Brayden Point raised to 3-1.

Some fans at the Canadian Tire Center hoped that the home team has a chance to strike back when Max Veronneau scored the second goal of the day for the Senators, with 4:34 into the final period.

That hope vanished just 48 seconds later when Gourde’s wrist shot after Mathieu Joseph’s assists, ended behind Craig Anderson’s back.

Steven Stamkos just confirmed the win with his 42nd goal of the season, 3:05 before the end of the contest.

The game was a little bit rough in the last period, and we saw one fight between Cameron Gaunce and Zack Smith, and several minor penalties after Gourde’s goal.

Nikita Kucherov had three assists, and he is just three points away from setting the new NHL record for a Russian with the most points during one season. At the moment the 25-year old right wing has 125 points, while the current holder Alexander Mogilny had 127 when he played for Buffalo in 1993.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_CIz6loU90

Point, Gourde and he are a force which harassed the whole league during the entire season. Last night these three did the same to the Senators, who didn’t have any idea how to stop them.

“They were really good tonight,” Cooper said for his upfront trio. “They were kind of the engine that got us going, definitely in the second period.”

League’s best defenseman Victor Hedman skipped this match, and he will be shut down for the rest of the regular part of the season. During the clash with Washington Capitals, he picked up an injury of the upper-body and the Lightning want to speed up his recovery and get him ready for the playoffs.

The team is in the situation to calculate now, and they can rest several players, as they already secured President’s Trophy.

Tampa Bay (60-15-4) has three more games to play, and all of them are away from Florida. The next one is in Canada also, against Montreal Canadians, already tonight. They are continuing the cross-border tour with the stop in Toronto against the Maple Leafs this Thursday, before heading back to the States, to close the regular part of the season in Boston against the Bruins.