The way he is playing, Tampa Bay Lightning backup goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy may never give up a goal again.
Vasilevskiy threw his second consecutive shutout Saturday afternoon, leading the Bolts to a 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.
“In today’s day and age, it’s tough to play somebody 70-plus games,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. You need two of them (goaltenders) to give yourself a chance. We’re in an extremely fortunate situation to have two guys the caliber of Vasy and Bish.
“They’re a great tandem because they push each other. They know their roles. And they’re good for each other. Bish has been around, maybe not in the NHL as long as some other guys, but he’s been in pro. They’re kind of passing information on to each other, helping each other out. It’s been great to watch those guys. As I said before, we’re very fortunate to have those two guys.”
Vasilevskiy was coming off a shutout against the Islanders. He had given up only one goal in his previous game against the Islanders. In his last three games, Vasilevskiy has given up one goal on 97 shots, He hasn’t given up a goal in 151 minutes.
“He’s locked in,” Cooper said of Vasilevskiy. He’s in command. You can see your goalies, when guys are coming down, they’re almost a little deflated coming down because he’s that in command of what’s going on. He’s tracking every puck. He’s playing the puck well. When the rebounds are, or stuff’s getting a little scrambly, he’s like the calm in the storm and he’s just swallowing pucks. He was great for us tonight.”
Tampa Bay scored on Tyler Johnson’s power play goal in the first period. It was Johnson’s sixth goal of the season.
In the second period, Ondrej Palat scored for the Lightning. Jonathan Drouin scored in the third period.
It made the Lightning 4-0 on this five-game road trip. Tampa Bay visits Nashville on Monday night.
