Vancouver Canucks Can’t Recover in 6-2 Loss to Lightning

Bob Frid-Imagn Images The Vancouver Canucks lost 6-2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Rogers Arena on Thursday night, and the game got away from them long before the final horn. Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Cirelli each finished with a goal and two assists, while Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves as Tampa Bay controlled most of the night. The Lightning came in looking sharper after a rough patch and made that show early.

Tampa Bay won its second straight game to open a four-game road trip, and its top line of Brandon Hagel , Cirelli, and Kucherov combined for eight points and finished plus-11. That kind of edge is hard enough to handle when a team is rolling. For the Canucks, which was trying to win back-to-back home games for the first time this season, it was too much.

You can tell when a game is getting away from a team, and this one got slippery for the Canucks fast. The team was still in it after the first period, down only 1-0, but there was not much room to breathe, and once Tampa Bay hit the gas in the second, the night became very long. At 17:37 of the first, Jake Guentzel opened the scoring with a deflection in the slot off a Charle-Edouard D’Astous point shot.

Then came the flood. Darren Raddysh made it 2-0 just 49 seconds into the second, Yanni Gourde tipped in another at 4:16, and Kucherov pushed the lead to 4-0 at 5:31 when his shot bounced in off Filip Hronek near the crease. A push that did not last Bob Frid-Imagn Images Liam Ohgren gave the Canucks a little life at 12:06 of the second, scoring off the rush from between the circles.