Pittsburgh Penguins @ Tampa Bay Lightning 3-4 - 23/12

Tyler Johnson's hat trick lifted the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 4-3 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Amalie Arena on Tuesday. The Lightning led 4-0 midway through the game, then held on after the Penguins scored three unanswered goals. Nikita Kucherov scored a goal and had two assists to help Tampa Bay win the opener of its three-game homestand. Ondrej Palat had three assists. Pittsburgh (22-7-5) has lost two straight (0-1-1) entering the three-day NHL holiday break and is 6-3-2 in December. Patric Hornqvist, Chris Kunitz and Kris Letang scored for the Penguins, who have 10 players on injured reserve. Johnson completed his hat trick at 2:37 of the second period when he took a pass from Kucherov inside the faceoff circle and sent a wrist shot past Penguins goalie Jeff Zatkoff, who replaced starting goalie Marc-Andre Fleury less than a minute into the second after Kucherov's goal. Fleury made seven saves on 10 shots. Johnson and Kucherov also connected at 6:54 of the first period to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead. Kucherov hit Johnson with a centering pass from the slot, and Johnson sent a one-timer past Fleury on the short side. Johnson scored his second goal with four seconds left in the first. Kucherov put the Lightning ahead 3-0 when he scored his 14th goal 52 seconds into the second period after defenseman Matthew Carle's outlet pass sent him in on Fleury on a breakaway. The Penguins got on the board at 10:15 of the second period when Hornqvist put a wrist shot over Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy's shoulder from the left faceoff circle. Following Kunitz's goal at 9:55 of the third period, Pittsburgh pulled to within a goal at 18:29 of the third period when Letang scored on a slap shot from the point after the Penguins had pulled Zatkoff for a 6-on-5 advantage. Vasilevskiy made 26 saves to earn his second NHL win for the Lightning, who defeated the Penguins for the first time since November 17, 2011. Zatkoff made 16 saves. The Lightning will host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, and the Penguins return home to play the Washington Capitals.

Pens Quotes

Sidney Crosby: "We definitely need this break to get some guys back here after Christmas. It's been a tough run here in the past month or so, and it feels like every game we are losing somebody. So hopefully we can get healthy and keep competing the same way. You don't like to lose, but we definitely had a lot of things going against us. I think the guys competed hard … gave ourselves a chance to get back into the game. We made some mistakes, but we didn't give up."
Mike Johnson: "I like to think I can shoot the puck if I need to. Tonight I had the opportunity and [Kucherov] made some nice plays to give me space to make things happen. I just shot when I saw an opening because the goal was to get the puck on net."
Kris Letang: "We don't want to find excuses, obviously we have a good side. They had good bounces and scored big goals. … They scored some big goals at key moments. But we hung in there and were one shot away from tying the game."