TAMPA, Fla. (AP) Brayden Point had four assists and Brandon Hagel scored twice to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to an 8-1 victory against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
Jake Guentzel, Conor Geekie and Cam Atkinson each scored a goal and assist. Anthony Cirelli, Nick Perbix and Nicholas Paul scored the Lightning's other goals.
Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 20 saves.
Alex Wennberg scored for San Jose, while Vitek Vanecek took the loss after allowing five goals on 12 shots before being replaced by Mackenzie Blackwood to start the second period. Blackwood made 21 saves.
After Tampa Bay took a 2-0 lead in the first period, Hagel scored two goals 23 seconds apart to make it 4-0. It’s the third-fastest time the same player scored two goals in Lightning history, behind Steve Downie (11 seconds on Feb. 12, 2012) and Jason Wiemer (15 seconds, October 3, 1997).
Sharks: San Jose’s three-game winning streak ended, and rookie Macklin Celebrini saw his point streak come to an end at five games.
Lightning: Four Tampa Bay players named to the Four Nations Faceoff - Point and Hagel for Canada, Guentzel for USA and Victor Hedman for Sweden – all had multi-point games combining for four goals and 11 points.
Tampa Bay was up 1-0 when Vasilevskiy had to stop Mikael Granlund on a 2-on-1 rush at 7:14 of the first period. Vasilevskiy kicked the puck out to the side to counter, which Geekie finished to give Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead 15 seconds later.
Tampa Bay scored five goals in the opening period for the second time this season (Nov. 25 vs. Colorado), which marks the first time in franchise history the Lightning have accomplished the feat multiple times in the same season.
The Sharks play the Panthers on Saturday, while the Lightning are play the Canucks on Sunday.
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