Brian Boyle scores twice, helps Lightning hold off Ducks
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The Tampa Bay Lightning rebounded from a tough loss with an impressive performance.
Brian Boyle scored the first of his two goals during Tampa Bay's three-goal first period and the Lightning beat the Anaheim Ducks 5-3 on Sunday night.
"That's more along the lines of what we want to see from us," Boyle said.
Valtteri Filppula, Nikita Kucherov and Ryan Callahan also scored for the Atlantic Division-leading Lightning, who had a franchise-record 10-game home winning streak end Saturday in a 4-2 loss to Los Angeles.
"To turn that around 24 hours later, that's a big effort by the boys," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said.
Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf, who returned after missing two games due to a lower-body injury, scored his 200th NHL goal and added an assist. Anaheim fell a point behind Nashville, a 3-2 shootout winner over Florida, for the NHL's best record.
"We weren't ready," Getzlaf said. "That's our job. It wasn't like the coaches didn't prepare us. We knew what they were going to do. We've just got to have that mindset every single night that we've got to be ready to play."
Anaheim goalie Frederik Andersen left midway through the third period when the net was dislodged from behind and landed on him. He skated off the ice on his own, but was in some discomfort.
Andersen will be evaluated Monday, but the team didn't think there was anything seriously wrong.
Ben Bishop made a nice save on Anaheim's first shot, which came when Ryan Kesler skated down the slot alone 9 minutes into the game. The goalie had been pulled after allowing three goals on nine shots in the first period Saturday.
"I really wanted to play this game," Bishop said. "Anytime you get pulled like that you want to bounce back."
Victor Hedman made several nifty stick-handling moves before sending a pass to Boyle, who beat Andersen from in-close to put the Lightning up 1-0 at 2:55 of the first.
After Filppula scored from the low slot off Steven Stamkos' pass at 13:42, Kucherov made it 3-0 with 1:08 left in the first.
"It put us on our heels a little bit," Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. "When you're playing a really good team, to come back from 3-0 in the first period is a tough thing, just as they found out last night."
Getzlaf cut the Ducks' deficit to 3-1 at 4:49 of the second. After a video review, the NHL said Corey Perry's pass through the crease went off Getzlaf's skate before entering net off Boyle's skate.
Boyle got the goal back during a goalmouth scramble with 5:33 to go in the second.
Callahan added a third-period goal, with both Stamkos and Filppula getting their second assists of the game on the play.
The Ducks got within two goals at 5-3 on late third-period goals by Sami Vatanen and Eric Brewer.
"It just seemed like they executed their game plan right from the beginning, and we weren't on the same pages as what we needed to do," Anaheim center Andrew Cogliano said.
NOTES: Lightning RW Brett Connolly had two assists. ... Tampa Bay D Jason Garrison sat out a second straight game with a lower-body injury. ... Getzlaf has four goals and eight points in eight games against the Lightning. ... Stamkos has four assists and eight points in five games against Anaheim. ... Perry has three assists and seven points during a five-game point streak. His three-game goal streak ended. ... Kucherov has a goal in three straight games. ... Perry has 299 NHL assists.
