Eurolanche

Lightning defeat Avalanche

Steven Stamkos took over the NHL scoring lead, and the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Colorado Avalanche 5-2 at Amalie Arena on Thursday. Stamkos had a goal and two assists; he has 41 points this season, one more than teammate Nikita Kucherov.

The Lightning (20-6-2) have won three in a row and are the first team to win 20 games this season. "It's not easy to win games consistently in this league," Stamkos said. "We want to bank as many wins as we can on home ice, so I'm glad we were able to get another one."

Gabriel Landeskog and Erik Johnson scored for the Avalanche (12-13-2). Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves. "We're going to have to watch some video and assess what we can do better and what's really costing us," Landeskog said. "That's four [losses] in a row now. We have to find a way to get out of this."

Landeskog, who returned after serving a four-game suspension for a crosscheck on Calgary Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk on Nov. 25, scored on his first shift. He took control of a loose puck around the boards, charged to the net and beat Peter Budaj with a backhand at 1:21 of the first period to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead.

"I was excited to be back out there," Landeskog said. "I saw an opportunity to take it to the net and got lucky."

Stamkos tied the game at 1-1 25 seconds later when he beat Varlamov one-on-one with a backhand for his 12th goal.

"I knew I had a step on [Nikita] Zadarov, he was kind of caught skating backwards and I was going full speed at him," Stamkos said. "I knew if I could get the puck I had stop time to make a move and it was nice to see that one go in."

The Lightning took a 2-1 lead at 13:36 of the first period when Kunitz scored on a high redirection of a shot from Dan Girardi. The Avalanche tied it 2-2 on a goal by Johnson at 18:22.Namestnikov gave the Lightning a 3-2 lead at 8:09 of the second period when he scored on a rebound of a shot by Tyler Johnson.

Budaj made 28 saves, including stopping Avalanche forward J.T. Compher on a breakaway in the second period that would have tied the game 3-3. "I think the puck was bouncing a little so he didn't get a good shot off," Budaj said. "And [Victor Hedman] was right on him, so that made my job a little easier."

Killorn scored a power-play goal at 4:57 of the third period to give Tampa Bay a 4-2 lead, and Point scored a shorthanded empty-net goal to make it 5-2 at 16:41. "We had a really, really strong first, it's too bad we couldn't come out with the lead, but we knew we were playing well," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "And the power play scored again and it was a big goal for us."

by Corey Long / NHL.com