TAMPA, Fla. _ The Rangers feared that they might be skating into a perfect storm on Thursday night against the Lightning at Amalie Arena.
Four consecutive goals by Tampa Bay less than seven minutes into the game proved the visitors were right to be concerned. The Lightning knocked out Alexandar Georgiev and went on to a 9-3 thumping that earned the Rangers a point for prescience, but nothing in the standings.
The Lightning were looking for payback after a 4-1 loss at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 29 that captain Steven Stamkos called "one of the more disappointing games, I think, for our group."
Plus, Tampa Bay was playing its first game at Amalie Arena since Oct. 26. The Lightning went from the Garden to Sweden and beat the Sabres in a pair of showcase games that seemed to get this talented team back on track.
"We're itching to play now," Stamkos said before the game.
Rangers coach David Quinn said before the puck dropped that the Rangers knew what they were going to face.
"We certainly understand that we're going to see a team that's hungry to play in front of their home crowd," Quinn said. "A hungry team that's wanting to give us a little payback for what happened. I'm sure they're unhappy with what happened the last time we played them. So we understand what's in front of us."
The Rangers had gone 5-1-1 in their last seven games _ a run that began with that game against Tampa Bay that followed an awful performance against Boston.
"For us, obviously, coming off a real dismal performance against the Bruins and you see Tampa on your schedule," Quinn said. "I think one of the things they do is they bring out the best in people because people respect how talented they are. I think oftentimes they get everybody's best."
Instead, the Rangers got Tampa Bay's best.
Luke Schenn scored 2:39 into the game with a shot from the right point. It was the defenseman's first goal since March 31, 2018.
The early onslaught really got underway after the Rangers gave the Lightning a 5-on-3 at 14:24. Brendan Lemieux was called for slashing. Play continued, and Tony DeAngelo was called for hooking.
It took the Lightning five seconds to make it 2-0 when Alex Killorn deflected a Nikita Kucherov shot past Georgiev.
It was still 5-on-4 for Tampa Bay when Kucherov made it 3-0 with a wrister at 13:40. Just 22 seconds later, Ondrej Palat beat Georgiev with another wrister.
The Lightning had three goals in 61 seconds and a 4-0 lead. Georgiev was replaced by Henrik Lundqvist after allowing four goals on eight shots.
Tampa Bay got one more shot in before Micheal Haley took the Rangers' first shot on goal 9:01 into the game. Haley was playing because 18-year-old Kaapo Kakko was scratched after pregame warmups with the flu. Kakko scored two goals in the Rangers' 3-2 victory against Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
The Rangers finally got on the board when Chris Kreider beat Andrei Vasilevskiy at 5:27 for his fifth goal of the season. But any thought of a comeback was snuffed out when Tampa Bay scored four more times against Lundqvist in the second period and improved to 4 for 4 on the power play.
The game degenerated into a slugfest late in the second period when Lemieux fought former Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh and Haley and Schenn went at it as well.
In the third, Georgiev returned to replace Lundqvist. Filip Chytil scored twice in the period to give him six goals in eight games.
The Lightning tied its franchise record for goals and for power-play goals when Yanni Gourde scored with 7:31 left.
The Rangers will conclude this two-game trip that Quinn called "a true test" on Saturday night against the Florida Panthers.
