Sunday, 4 a.m.
Say this for Andrei Vasilevskiy. He can take a punch.
Sometimes, he can fight back, too.
Vasilevskiy, two days after giving up six goals to the Buffalo Sabres, rebounded with a 45-save shutout Saturday night, leading the Bolts to a 3-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
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The Wings got off almost twice as many shots as Buffalo, but Vasilevskiy recorded his second shutout of the season and the 30th of his career. The Bolts, meanwhile, had just 18 shots, but scored three times.
"We’ve seen that on a number of occasions.," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "Probably not to that extent, because usually we don’t play that poorly. But the goalies are part of the game.
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"It shows you the character of Vasi. For him to come in and stand on his head. What a marvelous performance. He wanted this one because of how the last one went. He didn’t want to sit on it. He’s such a competitor. He was outstanding."
Oh, it's happened before. Against Florida earlier this month, Vasileveskiy gave up seven goals. But three nights later, he came back to shut out Colorado.
This time, he was a highlight reel. He made goals by Braydon Point and Nikita Kucherov seem like a dozen. (Alex Killorn added an empty netter late).
"It was like a pond hockey game for us at times," Cooper said. "We couldn’t execute. There have been plenty of times we’ve lost games when we thought we deserved to win. And we’ve won games when we were not the better team."
The Bolts play again today at 6 p.m. in Pittsburgh.
