Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Vegas Golden Knights and Tampa Bay Lightning could make for one entertaining Stanley Cup Final.
The perennial playoff teams and Cup contenders with talented rosters of big names tangled tonight at T-Mobile Arena.
But tonight was not that game after the first period.
After both teams split four goals in a roller-coaster first period, the Lightning scored four straight goals for a 6-2 win. Tampa Bay is now 7-2-0, while Vegas dropped to 8-3-0.
The VGK announced attendance at 17,017. Fixed-seat capacity is 17,367 in the arena.
The Knights were sloppy with the puck as Tampa scored four unassisted goals of its six tallies.
There’s also a VGK connection to Tampa Bay. Knights current coach Ryan Craig was drafted by Lightning in 2002 and played for the TBL from 2005-2010, including several years under former Tampa Bay and Vegas coach John “Torts” Tortorella.
The VGK’s Ivan Barbashev scored his first goal of the campaign in the season’s 11th game and goal-scoring machine Mark Stone notched his eighth while killing a penalty as the Knights and Bolts were tied at 2-2 after the first 20 minutes.
But Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli scored two straight goals in the second for a Tampa Bay 4-2 lead.
Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy also was rock solid in the middle stanza.
Victor Hedman scored his second of the season late in the period.
After two periods: Tampa Bay 5 Vegas 2
VGK goalie Carter Hart yielded five goals in 14 shots through two periods.
Then, there was a vintage Nikita Kucherov play, when he poke checked the puck and scored a breakaway goal on Hart for a 6-2 Tampa Bay advantage in the third period.
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