Brian Boyle scores twice, Lightning beat Flames 6-3 (Dec 14, 2016)
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) After falling behind early on the road, the Tampa Bay Lightning were pleased with the way they responded.
Brian Boyle scored two first-period goals and the Lightning beat Calgary 6-3 on Wednesday night to snap the Flames' six-game winning streak.
''That's a really good team over there. A lot of speed, a lot of skill. They're tough to play at home, and they've been hot,'' Boyle said. ''It's never a perfect game, but we made some strides tonight.''
Alex Killorn also scored twice, the second into an empty net, and Braydon Coburn and Andrej Sustr added goals. Victor Hedman and Valtteri Filppula each had three assists, and Ben Bishop made 19 saves to help Tampa Bay win for only the second time in nine games (2-6-1).
''I give them credit. I thought they were the hungrier of the two teams and the margins were small and they deserved to get points out of there,'' Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said.
Troy Brouwer, TJ Brodie and Micheal Ferland scored for Calgary.
Brouwer had a power-play goal 3:06 into the game before the Lightning tied it at 10:04, converting their first man advantage. With Dougie Hamilton serving a double-minor for high-sticking, Boyle neatly re-directed Hedman's point shot past goalie Chad Johnson.
Tampa Bay took the lead for good less than 4 minutes later when Boyle got behind Brodie with a nifty give-and-go with Filppula and beat Johnson with a deke to his backhand.
''(Hedman) was a monster tonight. He's such a huge part of our team. Head up on the first one. I just kind of had my stick out in the air and he hits it, sandlot style,'' Boyle said.
Trailing 2-1, the Flames had a couple of good chances to tie it early in the second but Johnny Gaudreau hit the post and good defending from Anton Stralman prevented Ferland from getting away a shot on a breakaway.
Shortly after, Coburn put the Lightning up 3-1 when his slap shot from the blue line beat Johnson. It was Coburn's first goal in 102 games.
Sustr's first of the season at 18:47 made it 4-1.
''It wasn't the start we wanted, but I'm pretty happy with the resiliency of our group coming back,'' Killorn said. ''You can't always control the way that the game starts, but you can control how you respond to that and I think we responded really well.''
Gulutzan replaced Johnson with Brian Elliott to open the third. Killorn scored a short-handed goal 37 seconds into the period.
''There are going to be games where you just don't have it,'' Brouwer said. ''It's a shame, because I actually thought we were pretty good to start the game and I liked where we were at, but then we let a couple floater shots from the point get through - things that are uncharacteristic of us.''
NOTES: The Lightning were without leading scorer Nikita Kucherov (undisclosed), who joined Steven Stamkos and Ryan Callahan on the sidelines. Then they lost Ondrej Palat (undisclosed) in the second period. ... Cory Conacher, recalled earlier in the day from Syracuse of the AHL, took Kucherov's spot on the line with Tyler Johnson and Palat.... Hedman played in his 500th NHL game. ... Calgary's Sean Monahan had an assist to extend his career-best scoring streak to eight games. He has four goals and six assists during the run, the second-longest active streak in the NHL behind Sidney Crosby (nine games).
UP NEXT
Lightning: Complete their four-day, three-game Canadian trip at Vancouver on Friday night and Edmonton on Saturday night.
Flames: Host Columbus on Friday night.
