Together, they are the three men you expect to score. The three men you expect to lead. The three men who are supposed to make the Tampa Bay Lightning special.
Steven Stamkos.
Tyler Johnson.
Nikita Kucherov.
The skills of all three were evident as they all scored in the first period in a 4-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Tampa Bay has struggled during the early part of the NHL season, but you couldn’t convince the Sabres of it. It was Tampa Bay’s third win over Buffalo this year.
“Those three goals, there were a lot of good habits and things that happened, things that we can keep pounding into our guys’ heads to say, ‘See, these are things you need to do to make sure pucks go in to the back of the net,’ ’’ Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Last year we kind of found a balance to score some goals and still play good (defense), and we have to understand we can still play good D and score. We are working on it.’’
Tampa Bay had just two wins in its previous seven games, both of which have been started by Andrej Vasilevskiy. Vasilevskiy stopped 30 shots, 20 of them in the second period.
Victor Hedman scored an empty netter for the Bolts’ fourth goal.
The Lightning plays at Minnesota Sunday.
