Conor Garland scores twice as Columbus Blue Jackets defeat Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 at Benchmark Arena NHL game

The Columbus Blue Jackets have continued their run of impressive point streaks to seven games following a very powerful performance of beating the Tampa Bay Lightning by 5 goals to 2, which took place at the Amalie Arena on Tuesday. Recently acquired Conor Garland, who had been taken in by the Vancouver Canucks, carried on his career-long red-hot streak, getting 2 goals and recording his first and second consecutive multi-goal games in the NHL.

Columbus could demonstrate its offensive depth in the performance of Garland, as well as with the good performance of teammates Sean Monahan, Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov, and Kirill Marchenko. Games of Gage Goncalves and J.J. Moser was not enough to help the Lightning, which had lost six of the last seven games, despite their recent form.

Conor Garland and Sean Monahan lead Columbus Blue Jackets past Tampa Bay Lightning

Only 30 seconds into the second period, Conor Garland, with a pass by Kent Johnson, scored his first goal of the season with a slide shot that went through the five-hole of the Tampa Bay Lightning goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy. Earlier, Ivan Provorov had evened the score at 1-1 with a blue line one-timer through the traffic.

Kirill Marchenko earned the goal at 11:42 of the second, which was a power-play goal, in the form of a one-goal shot from the left circle after Adam Fantilli had delivered a pass. Both Sean Monahan and Zach Werenski had two assists each and demonstrated their good playmaking that kept Columbus in the lead. At 4:00 in the third period, Conor Garland scored his second goal of the game by completing a backhander out of a pass by Monahan.

Two goals by Gage Goncalves, who had returned after injury, and J.J. Moser were scored by Tampa Bay Lightning, but Elvis Merzlikins saved 16 Columbus goals, and Andrei Vasilevskiy had 26 goals against him. In the last moments of the third period, Dante Fabbro closed the 5-2 final with a goal that was scored with an empty net.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are currently 33-21-10 and they are on a tight drive into the playoffs. The Lightning team is still struggling to recover as they seek to gain momentum in the next set of games.