Friday, 4 a.m.
So how would you like to win your 300th career hockey game?
Well, you can do it faster than anyone ever has. Andrei Vasilevskiy did it in his 490th game, which is 31 games faster than the next-best goalie (Jaques Plante).
You can do it at home. You can do after a bit of turbulence (three straight losses for Vasy, four straight for the team). You can do it with a superb effort (24 saves in 25 shots).
Also, you can do it against the hottest team in the NHL.
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The Lightning won their most impressive outing of the year Thursday night, beating the sizzling Winnipeg Jets 4-1.
Coming into the game, the Jets had won 15 of 16 games, the best start in the history of the NHL. The Jets had scored five goals or more in half of their games. They were 7-0 on the road. They were scoring on 42 percent of their power plays.
Vasilevskiy, 30, was better than all of it. He led a Bolts’ penalty kill that killed off four power plays. He held the Jets’ top line — Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi — scoreless. Coming in, the three of them had scored 27 goals and 57 points.
“How do you become the best?” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “You are put in the big moments at the big times, and you deliver time and time again. Anytime you said greatest, fastest, best, something’s coming with it. To do what he’s done as fast as he’s done it. Along the way, he’s won the Vezina. Two cups. I’m not sure what else you can say.
“He’s generational, and he’s still in his time. You watch him play now The Cat’s not going anywhere.”
Said defenseman Ryan McDonaugh: “He wants to be the best player every night, and most nights he is
Vasilevskiy wasn’t bothered by his three-game losing streak. “I thought I played good enough to win the last few games,” Vasilevskiy said. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen.”
Vasilevskiy wasn’t the only Bolts to hit a milestone. Anthony Cirelli scored his 100th goal. Jake Guentzel scored two goals (giving him his 234th career goal). Brandon Hagel scored his eighth of hte season.
The Bolts are home Saturday against New Jersey at 7 p.m.
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