Wednesday, January 29, 2020 10:00 PM (ET)

Led by Stamkos, Lightning rally to defeat Kings

Field Level Media
Jan 30, 2020

Steven Stamkos scored two goals and Erik Cernak delivered the go-ahead score early in the third period as the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from a two-goal deficit to earn a 4-2 road victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.

Tyler Johnson also scored for the Lightning, while goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves. Nikita Kucherov had two assists to extend his points streak to five games. Stamkos also has a five-game points streak.

The Lightning are now 1-0-1 in a pair of road games after the All-Star break. Tampa Bay entered with three defeats in their previous five games (2-2-1) following a 10-game winning streak.

Tyler Toffoli and Alex Iafallo scored goals for the Kings, who lost their fifth consecutive game and fell for the eighth time in their past nine games (1-7-1). Jonathan Quick had 20 saves for Los Angeles in the team's first game after the break.

It was the second time in the past two weeks the Lightning rallied from a two-goal deficit to defeat the Kings. They earned a 4-3 shootout victory at home over Los Angeles on Jan. 14 when Kucherov tied the score with 1:15 remaining in regulation.

Cernak's game-winner, his fourth on the season, came at 4:13 of the third period when he ripped a shot from the top of the right circle that Quick did not appear to see because of traffic in front of the crease.

Stamkos tied the score 2-2 at 11:58 of the second period, The Lightning peppered the Kings goal on a power play before scoring immediately after the teams returned to equal strength. Stamkos' second goal was scored into an empty net in the final second of the game.

Johnson scored his 12th of the season for Tampa Bay at 5:48 of the second period. Toffoli gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 6:44 of the first period on the power play with his 13th of the season, while Iafallo added his 11th of the season for a 2-0 lead at 1:18 of the second period.

Kings defenseman Drew Doughty saw his consecutive games played streak end at 460 when he was a scratch because of an undisclosed injury. It was the longest games-played streak in Kings history and the fifth longest active streak in the NHL.

--Field Level Media

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