Canucks crush Lightning thanks to Brock Boeser's hat trick

Brock Boeser scored a pair of second-period goals to break open a tie game en route to a hat trick as the host Vancouver Canucks defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on Tuesday.

Andrei Kuzmenko also scored for the Canucks, who have won three consecutive games. Goaltender Thatcher Demko made 28 saves, 13 of them in the third period.

J.T. Miller, who is second in the NHL scoring race, collected two assists to give him 42 points on the season. Quinn Hughes tallied three helpers.

Brayden Point scored for the Lightning, who have lost two of three games to start a five-game road trip. League points leader Nikita Kucherov was kept off the stat sheet and sits at 47 points on the season, and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 18 shots.

With the score even at 1-1 after the opening frame, Boeser put the Canucks ahead just before the midway point of the second period when he pounced on a rebound and backhanded it into the cage.

Then, he notched his second goal of the game at 16:52 of the frame by blasting a one-timer from the high slot to make it 3-1.

Boeser completed his fifth career hat trick by scoring an empty-net goal with 1:18 remaining in regulation. In addition to reaching the 20-goal mark for the fifth time in his career, Boeser also moved into a tie with Toronto Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews for the league goal-scoring lead. Both players have 21 markers.

The clubs traded first-period goals. Point opened the scoring 85 seconds into the clash by finishing a three-way passing play by tapping in a cross-ice pass from Mikhail Sergachev for his 13th goal of the season.

Kuzmenko's power-play goal at 6:08 of the period tied the game. He unloaded a one-timer from the top of the left circle for his fifth marker of the campaign.

Along the way, the Canucks snuffed all three Tampa Bay power plays, including a key opportunity early in the third period.

—Field Level Media