Jake Guentzel recorded his eighth career regular-season hat trick, Nikita Kucherov netted a milestone goal, and the Tampa Bay Lightning routed the visiting New Jersey Devils 5-1 on Tuesday night.
Kucherov, who also notched an assist, posted his 366th career tally and broke a tie for third in team history, passing Martin St. Louis. Vincent Lecavalier is next up with 383, while Steven Stamkos tops the franchise list with 555.
Darren Raddysh registered a goal and two assists for the Lightning, who avenged a 5-3 home loss to New Jersey on Oct. 11. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves for the club’s ninth victory in 12 games.
Nico Hischier scored for the Devils, who fell to 4-1-1 in their past six games. Goalie Jacob Markstrom stopped 24 shots.
The Devils’ Connor Brown, who missed the past seven games with an upper-body injury and scored twice in the teams’ first meeting, played. He posted a minus-2 rating in 15:21 of ice time.
New Jersey also got back Dougie Hamilton (lower body) and Evgenii Dadonov (hand).
Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli (upper body) suited up after missing four outings, and Dominic James (face) returned to center the third line.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper missed the contest for personal reasons, and assistant coach Jeff Halpern ran the team.
In the first period, Tampa Bay took advantage of a turnover that bounced off the boards in the New Jersey offensive end near the blue line. The left-handed-shooting Guentzel came in from the right and beat Markstrom for an unassisted goal on the short side at 11:40.
Alone just inside the right circle, Kucherov matched Guentzel’s effort when he took a backhanded feed from Cirelli and made it 2-0 at 19:38 of the first.
Tampa Bay went on the power play twice in the second, and the second man advantage produced a 3-0 lead at 10:38 when Raddysh sent a pass wide of Markstrom that Guentzel shoveled in.
Hischier won a battle near the cage with defenseman J.J. Moser, who pushed the puck in at 17:47 of the middle period as the pair fell to the ice.
In the third, Raddysh upped the lead to 4-1 at 4:49. Guentzel scored his second power-play goal to complete his hat trick at 7:48, off assists from Kucherov and Raddysh.
