Kucherov has 3 points, Lightning power past Canucks

Tampa Bay’s top defenseman and captain Victor Hedman did not play after the first period. 

“I’ll let everybody know tomorrow,” Cooper said of Hedman’s status. “He wasn’t feeling well.” 

Asked if it was more illness than injury, Cooper said, “Yeah.”

Marco Rossi had two assists, and Kevin Lankinen made 24 saves for the Canucks (21-39-8), who were trying to win consecutive home games for the first time this season. 

Vancouver is 3-3-1 in its past seven games after going 4-18-4 in its previous 26.

“They’re a really good team, so it’s important to learn from it,” Rossi, who has nine points (three goals, six assists) during a four-game point streak, said of the Lightning. “It’s important to stay positive. You’re going to have some nights like that, but it’s important to learn from the mistakes.”

Jake Guentzel put Tampa Bay ahead 1-0 at 17:37 of the first period with a deflection in the slot of a Charle-Edouard D’Astous point shot, beating a screened Lankinen on the glove side. With the goal, Guentzel became the third Lightning player this season to reach 30 for the season. 

Raddysh scored 49 seconds into the second period to make it 2-0, one-timing a Kucherov pass from below the goal line past the blocker of Lankinen from the top of the right face-off circle after the Canucks goalie lost his stick earlier in the sequence. 

“Just kind of put your head down and just get it by my block, and hopefully it goes in,” Raddysh said.

Yanni Gourde scored on a deflection of a Raddysh point shot to make it 3-0 at 4:16, and Kucherov pushed it to 4-0 just 1:15 later with a quick wrist shot from the top of the right circle that bounced in off the shin pad of Canucks defenseman Filip Hronek at the edge of the crease at 5:31.

“We played hard tonight, probably got some bounces that in the end we probably deserved,” Cooper said. “We were going through a little bit of a nonshooting phase for a bit, but caught some breaks on some deflections and some tips.”