LAS VEGAS — J.T. Miller scored his third goal of the season, Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 29 of 31 shots and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Friday.
Tyler Johnson and Brayden Point also scored for Tampa Bay, which extended its point streak to seven games, going 6-0-1 over that stretch.
Shea Theodore and William Karlsson scored for Vegas, while Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves.
Ten games into their inaugural season, the Golden Knights were 8-2-0. They didn’t lose their fifth game until Nov. 7. Now, the defending Western Conference champions are 4-5-1 and sixth in the Pacific Division.
Though it notched one power-play goal, Vegas still has the league’s worst conversion rate with a man advantage, now 3 for 32. Tampa Bay owns the league’s best penalty kill (35 of 37).
Johnson put the Lightning on the board early in the first period when he spotted a rebound in front of the net and chipped a shot past Fleury.
Ryan Carpenter used the boards to slide a perfect pass to Theodore, who blasted a one-timer through traffic from the blue line and past Vasilevskiy to tie game a couple minutes later.
Later in the first, Steven Stamkos delivered a pass into the slot for Point, who tapped the puck past Fleury to give Tampa Bay the lead again.
Miller made it 3-1 early in the second. He was positioned perfectly in front of the net when the puck deflected off him and past Fleury for a power-play goal. The Lightning have scored on the power play in four straight games and six of their last seven.
Karlsson ripped a wrist shot past Vasilevskiy on the glove side for a power-play goal with 18:13 left.
NOTES
JOHN ZIEGLER JR., the NHL president who oversaw the merger with the World Hockey Association and was eventually ousted following labor unrest and a players’ strike in 1992, has died. He was 84.
The NHL confirmed Ziegler’s death on its website, although the cause was not immediately known.
Ziegler was the NHL’s fourth president, succeeding Clarence Campbell in 1977 and serving 15 years. He was the first American to run the league and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987.
Contentious labor talks between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association over playoff bonuses, free agency and pension funds led to the players voting to strike in the final weeks of the 1991-92 season. The strike lasted 10 days.
League owners unhappy with the labor agreement ousted Ziegler two months later.
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