VANCOUVER, British Columbia_It got messy, but the Tampa Bay Lightning pulled out a 5-2 win over Vancouver on Tuesday ... after a combined 58 penalty minutes.
There were two official fights, one nasty-looking blindside interference call and umpteen scrums after the whistle.
Nikita Kucherov got the scoring started in the first period. Brayden Point won a faceoff straight back, and Kucherov took a fraction of a second to settle the puck before sending it past goaltender Anders Nilsson.
Tyler Motte tied it up 37 seconds later, tipping Troy Stecher's shot just outside of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy's out-stretched glove.
It took about two minutes for Cedric Paquette to put the Lightning back on top. Danick Martel made a sharp pass off a spin move to set Paquette up out front. Martel, in his first game since Nov. 10, wasn't even supposed to play. Ryan Callahan was ruled out with an undisclosed "upper-body" injury between warmups and puck drop, and Martel took his place.
Adam Erne added what turned out to be the game-winner at 8:37 of the second period, tipping Paquette's shot past Nilsson.
It was a game of tips, though, as Christopher Tanev deflected Antoine Roussel's shot past Vasilevskiy 5:46 into the third period to bring the Canucks within a goal.
Steven Stamkos added an insurance goal late in the third period, a wrist shot from the right faceoff dot � where else? Then, Ondrej Palat landed an empty-netter shortly there after.
