Lightning take the New York Rangers 6-2 at Amalie Arena

One thing is certain, the Lightning aren’t apologizing for a 6-2 win on Saturday.

On a night where a struggling New York Rangers team came to town, the Lightning still knew they needed to clamp down early. In the first period, the Rangers pushed hard, forcing the Lightning to spend more time than they’d like in the defensive zone, and generating 17 shots on goal.

“It was a ton of shots against, and obviously not really the recipe we want to play, as far as being consistent and being tough to play against defensively,” said Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh. “We gave them a lot of looks and kind of struggled in our own zone, and give them credit, they pressured hard.”

Coming off a break can be tricky, but the Lightning began to find their flow and special teams made all the difference.

The “Igor..Igor..Igor” chants from the visiting fans started out loud at Amalie Arena, but were quickly dissolved as Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point teamed up to open the scoring with a power-play goal.

In total, the Lightning tallied two power play goals and two shorthanded goals, one by Ryan McDonagh and the second by Anthony Cirelli.

“It’s kind of a back breaker for the PP," McDonagh said of the Lightning's two shorthanded goals. "After we got the second one there, we kind of carried the momentum, because they had us on our heels there for the start of the game.”

Igor Shesterkin allowed five goals on 13 shots before being pulled at the 8:08 mark of the second period. Jonathan Quick allowed one goal on 12 shots.

“I think you’ve caught a team that’s been a little up and down lately, and you were able to get out of the first period in which they controlled a lot of the play with their game, and I thought that was fortuitous for us,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “We came out in the second period, we did our thing, got the lead and then basically got our way through the game.”

Jake Guentzel and Nick Paul also added goals to the scoresheet for the Lightning, later into the second period and into the third. The Rangers continued to generate shots attempts throughout the game, ending with 78 total. Andrei Vasilevskiy finished the night with 42 saves.

“We didn’t have a lot of zone time, and fortunately, we capitalized on some rush chances," said McDonagh. Doesn’t have to be pretty, but we’ve got to learn some things, and certainly can’t repeat that performance on Sunday, because we’ll get hurt by them.”

The Lightning will complete their back-to-back on Sunday with a matchup against the Montreal Canadiens, who are coming off a 4-0 shutout win against the Florida Panthers.