The Florida Panthers were beaten 3-1 by the Tampa Bay Lightning last night at Amerant Bank Arena in preseason game number six.
Defenseman Emil Lilleberg’s rising knuckler found its way past Sergei Bobrovsky 13:19 into the first period gave the Lightning a lead it would not relinquish.
After Bobrovsky departed midway through the second with nine saves on ten shots, Gage Gonsalves beat Spencer Knight 2:27 later, putting the puck away after Knight denied Conor Geekie on a 2-on-1 break and Geekie was able to tap the rebound over Gonsalves.
The Panthers finally got on the board when Sam Reinhart tipped Carter Verhaeghe’s long-range wrister past Jonas Johansson with 4:34 left in regulation and Ethan Gauthier off for holding. Matthew Tkachuk drew the secondary helper on the power-play goal.
Maxim Groshev would complete the scoring with an empty-netter with the lone assist going to Nikita Kucherov. Groshev had the second assist on Lilleberg’s game-opening goal.
Knight finished the game with 13 saves while former Panther Johansson, who went the distance for the Bolts, made 26 saves to earn First Star honors from the media. A good night for all three goaltenders.
The Panthers now 3-3 in the preseason and will meet again Wednesday night at Amalie Arena.