Hurricanes 1 - 2 Lightning
Final
  for this game

Bishop, Bolts beat Hurricanes once more

Dec 28, 2014 - 6:14 AM Tampa, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Make if 5-for-5 for Ben Bishop against the Hurricanes.

Bishop stopped 25 shots and the Tampa Bay Lightning got goals from Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn in a 2-1 victory over Carolina on Saturday.

"I don't know if it was going to go down as the most exciting game of the year. The puck was bouncing all over the place," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "I thought we had a lot of really good chances to blow it open. We couldn't do it."

Bishop has five wins in as many career starts against Carolina. He took a shutout into the third period until Andrej Sekera lit the lamp on a wrister from just inside the blue line with 5:56 remaining.

Cam Ward made 36 saves for the Hurricanes, who lost for the third time in four contests. They lost at Tampa Bay by the same score Dec. 11.

"You have to score to win and we just having a hard time generating enough offense to win," Carolina forward Eric Staal said. "Against good teams it's that one play or one goal that you need. For us, it's tough finding that."

The Lightning grabbed the lead 8:50 into the contest. Ondrej Palat stole the puck in the left corner and fed it to Kucherov for a shot from the inside edge of the left circle. The puck fluttered into the top right portion of the net.

Killorn's eighth of the season came 4:53 into the third on a shot from the slot.

Bishop smothered a shot from Victor Rask with 55.1 seconds remaining.

The Hurricanes, with their goaltender pulled, put pressure on Bishop. Tampa Bay was called for icing with 15.7 seconds left. Another icing call gave Carolina an offensive zone faceoff with 3.3 seconds to go, but the visitors couldn't get off a shot on net.

Game Notes

Kucherov, who has 15 goals on the season, tallied both goals in Tampa Bay's Dec. 11 win ... Over his past eight games, he has posted six goals and five assists ... Tampa Bay has won back-to-back games for the first time since capturing four straight from Nov. 22-Dec. 1 ... The Lightning have won nine of the last 10 meetings.






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