Canucks torched by Tampa Bay

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov got the Tampa Bay Lightning off to a strong start in their first home game in three weeks.

Kucherov stopped an 11-game goal drought, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves for his NHL-best 32nd victory, and the Lightning beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Thursday night.

Yanni Gourde, Adam Erne, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman also scored for the Lightning, who returned home after a 5-3 trip.

“We had the puck a lot because we were smart with it in the neutral zone,” Stamkos said. “It allowed dominating shifts in their defensive zone.”

Brock Boeser scored his 26th goal and Anders Nilsson stopped 31 shots in defeat for Vancouver.

“They know how to put the puck in the net,” Nilsson said. “That’s a good team over there. I felt OK, but obviously none of us were good enough.”

Kucherov opened the scoring with his 28th goal of the season by converting a rebound 14:36 into the first period.

“You’re not going to keep a kid like that down for long,” Stamkos said. “It was a matter of time. You could tell by his celebration he was happy to score.”

After Gourde got his 20th goal during a power play at 1:38 of the second, Erne made it 3-0 with 6:20 left in the second in his first NHL game this season.

Stamkos completed Tampa Bay’s three-goal second when he picked his up 20th goal late in the period.

“I didn’t think our first two period were as bad as the score,” Canucks centre Henrik Sedin said.

Boeser, the MVP at last month’s NHL All-Star game in Tampa, had a power-play goal early in the third. Sven Baertschi cut the deficit to 4-2 midway through the period before Hedman responded with a late power-play goal.