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Recap: Late Montour goal gives Panthers 3-2 win over Lightning

Brandon Montour’s cranked in a power-play goal with 1:15 left in regulation to give the Florida Panthers a 3-2 preseason win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at FLA Live Arena.

Montour drew the hooking call on Nikita Kucherov which gave the Cats a man advantage with 3:03 left in the tilt. The assists on the winning goal went to Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad.

Ekblad helped get the Panthers on the board 3:43 into the game when his dump-in took a strange bounce off the boards and wound up in the slot where Zac Dalpe cashed in on the fortuitous rebound.

Aleksi Heponiemi put the Cats up by two when he rapped in the rebound off Sam Reinhart’s shot with 1:57 left in the opening frame. A fine pass from Barkov to Heponiemi, who loaded the gun for Reinhart started off the scoring play.

The Lightning halved the deficit on a Nick Paul’s goal midway through the second and Valdislav Namestnikov’s marker 4:16 into the third. Ross Colton and Steven Stamkos drew the assists on Paul’s goal and Kucherov and Cal Foote were credited with the helpers on Namestnikov’s.

Sergei Bobrovsky delivered a quality start for the Cats, who looked a much cohesive and engaged unti last night, finishing with 26 saves on 28 shots. Andrei Vasilevskiy went the distance for the Bolts and stopped 38 of 41 shots.

The two teams will play again Saturday night at Amalie Arena. Expect the regulars who didn’t play: Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Colin White and Nick Cousins to see action.

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