TAMPA - Ilya Mikheyev scored twice against his former Chicago Blackhawks teammates and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves in his 600th career start as the Tampa Bay Lightning posted a 4-1 victory Thursday, extending the franchise record for best home start in team history to 8-0-0.
The win pushed Tampa Bay’s overall record to 10-3-2. Mikheyev, who spent the last two seasons in Chicago before joining the Lightning, delivered the game-winner with 90 seconds left in the first period, accepting a drop pass from Erik Cernak at the left point, moving to the circle and firing a shot between goalie Arvid Soderblom’s leg pads for a 2-0 lead. He added a tap-in goal in the third period off another Cernak feed. “I was just driving to the net and something happens, maybe,” Mikheyev said. “Nothing crazy, nothing new.”
Coach Jon Cooper credited both Mikheyev’s line and the team’s overall structure. “For the most part, we played a pretty steady, solid game,” Cooper said. “I give Chicago credit. That’s a young, young team, and they just kept coming and kept coming. It showed, and they scored in the end. But in the end, we had to get our job done tonight, and we did.” Cooper also singled out Mikheyev’s trio with Zemgus Girgensons and Pontus Holmberg: “That’s a pretty darn good trio, and they spent a lot more time in the offensive zone than the line they were going against.”
Captain Victor Hedman opened the scoring on a power-play goal 4:12 into the game, rushing through the neutral zone, exchanging passes with Anthony Cirelli and one-timing the return shot past Soderblom. The Lightning power play has now scored in seven of its last eight games. “I’ve played together with Tony for a long time, and we know our instincts,” Hedman said. “We trust those, and that’s why it was kind of open and had some good speed. So it was a good play.”
Ryan McDonagh extended the lead to 3-0 with a top-shelf slap shot from atop the left faceoff circle 2:38 into the third period before Cernak and Mikheyev combined for the fourth goal. Thursday marked Cernak’s 11th career multi-point game. “In our system, defensemen have to kind of jump into the offense, into those rushes, and that happened to me twice today,” Cernak said. “Luckily, both of the goals from Micky went in.”
Vasilevskiy’s .962 save percentage was his best of the season. Chicago’s only goal came on a deflection in the game’s final minute. “It was an unfortunate goal,” Cernak said. “The guy falls down, Vasy falls down and he just couldn’t see the puck.” Vasilevskiy is now 8-3-1 on the season, with eight wins tying him for third among all NHL goalies. He is one of only three active goalies - alongside Connor Hellebuyck and Sergei Bobrovsky - to reach 600 career starts, and just the 49th goalie all-time to reach the milestone.
Tampa Bay hits the road for a back-to-back weekend, beginning with an 8 p.m. ET puck drop Saturday against the Minnesota Wild, who enter at 11-3-3.