TAMPA (620 WDAE) -- Steven Stamkos finishes with a pair of goals and four points overall and Ondrej Palat scored his first two goals of the season as the Tampa Bay Lightning extended their winning streak to six games with a 7-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche Saturdxay at Amalie Arena.
The Lightning offense started off almost immediately, as Tyson Jost took a hooking penalty just two minutes into the contest and Stamkos made Colorado pay with a blast past Semyon Varlamov for his 11th goal of the year.
The Tampa Bay captain made it 2-0 ten minutes later, taking a Avalanche turnover and beating the Colorado netminder for number 12 of the year.
Nathan Mackinnon cut the lead back to a single goal 59 seconds later, but Tyler Johnson gave the Lightning breathing room again with just over four minutes to play in the period.
Tampa Bay kept the pressure on starting the second period, with Alex Killorn pushing the lead to 4-1 just two minutes into the period, and when Palat scored his first goal of 2018 just eight minutes into the middle period, Varlamov was replaced by Philipp Grubauer.
Anthony Cirelli made it 6-1 midway through the period, beating Grubauer for his sixth goal of the season, and Palat's power play goal less than four minutes into the game sealed the scoring.
Louis Domingue stopped 29 of the 30 shots he faced to pick up the win.
SCORING SUMMARY
1st Period
- TBL: GOAL (PP) - Steven Stamkos (11). ASSISTS - Kucherov, Hedman. TIME - 3:05.
- TBL: GOAL - Steven Stamkos (12). ASSISTS - none. TIME - 13:15.
- COL: GOAL - Nathan Mackinnon (20). ASSISTS - Landeskog, Rantanan. TIME - 14:14.
- TBL: GOAL - Tyler Johnson (12). ASSISTS - Girardi, Kucherov. TIME - 16:26.
2nd Period
- TBL: GOAL - Alex Killorn (6). ASSISTS - Gourde, Stamkos. TIME - 2:00.
- TBL: GOAL - Ondrej Palat (1). ASSISTS - Stamkos, Sergachev. TIME - 7:59
- TBL: GOAL - Anthony Cirelli (6). ASSISTS - Coburn. TIME - 10:01
3rd Period
- TBL: GOAL (PP) - Ondrej Palat (2). ASSISTS - Johnson, Miller. TIME - 3:29