The Backcheck: A record setting victory

Three playoff teams came into AMALIE Arena this week and all three left with zero points. The Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up their three-game homestand with a 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings Saturday night and head into the All-Star break riding a franchise record 12-game home winning streak.

The Bolts are 32-15-1 through 48 games this season with a .677 points percentage, good for sixth-best in the NHL. With one game to go before the break, it could have been easy for the Bolts to look ahead to some much-deserved time off.
But instead, Tampa Bay came out for the first period with a purpose, scoring three goals and taking a 3-1 lead to the first intermission.
Brayden Point opened the scoring at the 5:02 mark of the opening frame with his team-leading 29th goal of the season. After Sean Walker tried to send a bank pass over to his D-partner behind the Kings net, Nikita Kucherov immediately jumped on the puck and quickly sent a pass to Point, who was waiting in the slot to fire a shot on goal and beat Jonathan Quick for the game-opening goal.
The goal marked the sixth game-opening tally of the season for Point, which leads all Lightning skaters. As for Kucherov, he extended his home point streak to 15 games, dating back to November 25, 2022, which is now one game short of the franchise mark he set in 2018-19.

With momentum on their side, the Bolts took advantage and grabbed a 2-0 lead just 1:19 after Point's game-opening tally. After the Kings attempted a breakout pass along the boards, Nick Perbix made a heads-up play to pinch down the wall and intercept the puck before feeding Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in the slot. Bellemare leaned into a wrist shot and scored his third goal of the season, with a little help from Corey Perry on a screen in front, before pointing skyward towards the ceiling. After the game, Bellemare revealed that his mother passed away a few days before the game.
"I thought she'd be proud," Bellemare said as he choked back tears.
She undoubtedly would be proud of her son, as were all of Bellemare's teammates and coaches. The fact that he was even there for the game was impressive enough.
"When Belly scored today, you know how excited everybody was," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "Everybody's just got to realize, there's life outside of this game we play. That's why we have such a close group, because everybody's there for each other."
Jaret Anderson-Dolan got the Kings within one at the 10:12 mark of the first, but Tampa Bay answered 5:45 later when Perry jumped on a rebound in front of Quick and buried his ninth goal of the season as Perbix picked up his second assist of the period.
The Lightning kept things moving forward in the second period and took a 4-1 lead with 4:40 remaining in the middle frame when Ross Colton positioned himself right in front of the net, jumped on another loose puck in front of Quick, and buried his 12th goal of the season. Perbix picked up his third primary helper of the game, setting a new career high with three points on the night.

"I've said it before," said Colton. "I've just been trying to get a lot of chemistry with my linemates. We were juggling lines for the first however many games of the season.
"Lately it's been me, Pauly and Patty. We kind of know each other pretty well. I played with Pauly most of the season last year when he came over. I played with Patty my first year and a little bit last year.
"We're just trying to be effective with the minutes we get. They're not a ton, but when we're out there, we're just trying to play physical down below the goal line. Luckily, these last couple of games, we've gotten rewarded."
Phillip Danault made it a 4-2 game just before the end of the second period, but in typical Tampa Bay fashion, the Bolts shut things down in the third period and got the only goal of the final 20 minutes with Victor Hedman hammering home his third goal of the year.
Steven Stamkos picked up an assist on Hedman's goal and extended his point streak to 11 games.
With three wins over three strong teams this week, the Lightning played a playoff brand of hockey. They were crisp in their own zone, patient with the puck, and, most importantly, limited mistakes.

During the 12-game winning streak, the Bolts have scored four or more goals 10 times and allowed two or less goals nine times. Through 48 games, Cooper has been pleased with the consistent growth of the group.
"If you're going to judge where we are in the standings, you'd say [it's been] a heck of a job that these guys have done, especially when you start the season 1-3," said Cooper. "There's been a lot of growth with our team.
"We're a much better team today than we were on day one. We're starting to find some consistency in our game and that's what you want as you're trying to make a push for the playoffs, but we've put ourselves in the spot we want to be in.
"We've just got to keep moving forward, but like I said, we're a much better team now than we were a few months ago."
With the team hitting the All-Star break, Tampa Bay's next game action will come on Monday, February 6, with a matchup against the Florida Panthers at FLA Live Arena. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. ET.