Palat, Stralman Lead Lightning Past Penguins 6-3
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Ondrej Palat and Anton Stralman both scored twice, Tyler Johnson had a goal and two assists and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3 on Friday night for their eighth consecutive home win.
Tampa Bay, 10-1 overall since Jan. 8, also got a goal from Alex Killorn. Nikita Kucherov had two assists to give him a point in 21 of his last 25 games (17 assists, 32 points).
Patric Hornqvist, Sidney Crosby and Matt Cullen scored for the Penguins, who had a four-game winning streak end and lost in regulation for just the fourth time in 18 games (10-4-4). Marc-Andre Fleury was pulled midway through the second after allowing four goals on 14 shots and replaced by Jeff Zatkoff.
Crosby moved within one point of becoming the 106th NHL player to reach 900 points. If he gets the point in his next two games, Crosby will become the 10th-fastest to the milestone.
Penguins center Evgeni Malkin is dealing with a lower-body injury and didn't play. The team's leading scorer will also sit out Saturday's game at Florida and will be re-evaluated early next week.
After getting outshot 10-1, the Lightning tied it at 1 when Stralman scored on Tampa Bay's second shot of the first period at 11:50.
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Tampa Bay went ahead 2-1 on its fifth and final shot in the first on Killorn's redirection with 1:26 left. Tampa Bay's Ben Bishop stopped 11 of 12 Pittsburgh shots during the first. Bishop finished with 27 saves.
Palat made it 3-1 on a short-handed breakaway goal at 6:04 of the second. Palat also scored with 4:05 to play before Stralman added an empty-netter.
After Crosby extended his goals streak to five consecutive games and his points streak to nine with his goal 8:04 into the second, Johnson's power-play goal 1:11 later put Tampa Bay up 4-2.
Cullen cut the Penguins' deficit to one at 4-3 just 55 seconds into the third.
Hornqvist opened the scoring at 4:53 of the first off a pass from Chris Kunitz, who picked up his 300th NHL assist.
NOTES: Malkin has 19 goals and 42 points in 31 games against Tampa Bay. ... Crosby has 14 goals and 41 points over 30 games against the Lightning. ... Bishop beat Pittsburgh for the first time. He entered 0-2-0 with a 4.93 goals-against-average in five previous meetings.
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