The Florida Panthers surrendered three first period goals and couldn’t solve journeyman Jonas Johansson in a frustarting 4-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amerant Bank Arena.
Nikita Kucherov, who was stopped on a breakaway on his first shift of his game, opened the scoring by roofing backhanded a shot on Sergei Bobrovsky at the 6:56 mark. The goal came after Anthony Cirelli picked off Dmitry Kulikov down low and fed back to Victor Hedman, who sent Kucherov in alone on Bobrovsky.
The Lightning added a four-on-four goal 2:24 later with A.J. Greer and Emil Lilleberg off for roughing. After taking an outlet pass from Hedman, Brandon Hagel gained the zone and dropped to Jake Guentzel and he pumped a shot past Bobrovsky from the high slot.
With Tampa Bay on a man-advantage, Bobrovsky would make a nice pad save on Mitchell Chaffee’s redirection of Cirelli’s wrister from the right point. Unfortunately, the rebound went right back to Chaffee and he took the puck off his skate and fired it home at the 16:24 mark. Nick Paul picked up the secondary assist on Chaffee’s seventh, which came with Eetu Luostarinen serving a slashing minor.
Shortly after Chaffee’s goal Kucherov went knee-first into Matthew Tkachuk’s knee, sending Florida’s superstar and spiritual leader to the dressing room and pushing what was already a pyschical contest to the next level. Thankfully, Tkachuk would return early in the second period.
The teams would combine for 63 penalty minutes and the Panthers would finish with 32 hits, many of them of the punishing variety.
Despite looking a bit tired and a little off in the crispness department, the Cats, who led 24-14 in scoring chances at 5-on-5, made former Panther Johansson work for his 36-save shutout. Surprisingly, the towering 29-year-old was up to the task on this night.
I wouldn’t describe a lot of what the Panthers put on Johansson as high-quality, but there were a few really good chances and they did crash the net a lot, it just wasn’t their night.
This game was lost in the first period and early in the second when Florida’s power play couldn’t cash in on the five-minute major that Kucherov received for kneeing Tkachuk (reduced to three by an Aaron Ekblad roughing) and subsequent penalties on Hedman and Erik Cernak in short succession.
The Panthers went 0-for-4 with man-advantage and surrendered a power-play goal, one at 4-on-4, and finally a shorthanded goal when Hagel found the empty net with the lone assist going to Cernak to complete the scoring.
The Panthers will get four days off before getting the next four games at home, starting with the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday afternoon. Sucks to get handed a lump of coal by the Lightning, but thanks to the Maple Leafs loss to Winnipeg, Florida hits the holiday break in sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division, two points ahead of Toronto, who hold a game in hand.
Nuts & Bolts
- Jonas Johansson earned First Star honors for posting his first shutout of the campaign. Johansson made two appearances in net for the Panthers during the 2021-22 season.
- Sam Bennett finished with a game-high five shots (tied with Aaron Ekblad) and was credited with two hits and two blocks, however, he was one of two Cats (along with Carter Verhaeghe) to go minus-three.
- Sergei Bobrovsky shook off the three first period goals to finish with 25 saves. Bobrovsky was strong the rest of the way, but his teammates just couldn’t find the back of the net to swing momentum their way.
- Nikita Kucherov’s early game-winning goal was his 50th point of the season. Kucherov, who is tied for fourth in the league in scoring, is one of five NHLers to reach that plateau so far this season.
- A.J. Greer dished out a game-high six hits and added two shots, two blocks and six PIM in 13:05 of ice time. A strong effort from the fourth-liner.
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