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Game Four Caterwaul: Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning

Cats on the brink of elimination after 5-1 loss in Game 3

Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning

WHEN: 7 p.m. ET
WHERE: Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL
SERIES: Lightning lead 3-0
ON THE TUBE: TNT
ON THE DIAL: 560 WQAM (D/B), 640 WMEN (PB), Thunder 100.3 (Keys)
SOCIALS: #TimeToHunt, #GoBolts, #FLAvsTBL, @LitterBoxCats, LBC FaceBook
ENEMY INTEL: Raw Charge
LAST MEETING: @TBL 5, FLA 1
NEXT MEETING: May 25, 2022 (cross your fingers)
PROJECTED STARTERS: Bobrovsky (4-5 .906/2.88 0SO) vs Vasilevskiy (7-3 .922/2.44 0SO)
PLAYER STATS: Florida / Tampa Bay/

Game 3 Recap

The Florida Panthers finally scored on the power play, but it wasn’t enough as the offense sputtered again in a maddening 5-1 defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning. After Corey Perry opened the scoring with another goal via deflection, Jonathan Huberdeau took a pass from Aleksander Barkov and then made a nice backhand dish to Sam Reinhart, who slammed it home at 16:07 to end Florida’s 0 for 25 postseason drought. Erik Cernak beat Sergei Bobrovsky top shelf with a perfectly placed against the grain shot 2:54 into the second period to put the Bolts back on top. The pivotal moment in the game came midway through the frame when Huberdeau’s shot at what looked to be a sure goal was blocked by the stick of Ryan McDonagh. Soon after that, Nikita Kucherov would set up Steven Stamkos for a one-timer that Bobrovsky couldn’t quite get to to cap off a 3-on-2 rush to put the Lightning up by two. The Cats couldn’t score again to close the gap and Kucherov and Stamkos would add empty-netters to complete the scoring. Florida had its chances, but just couldn’t find a way to finish. Maxim Mamin, who played very well, had a first period breakaway chance that was turned away by Andrei Vasilevski, who made another big stop on Reinhart early. Barkov rang one off the inside of the post in the second and a couple of other shots got behind Vasilevskiy, who finished with 34 saves, but were not put into the net. Just another disappointing result from the Panthers, who used up eight of their nine lives and will need a colossal effort to survive and get the series back to Sunrise.

Saturday’s results`