The Florida Panthers surrendered three second goals in a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second game for both teams of the 2025 NHL Prospect Tournament in Wesley Chapel, FL.
Hunter St. Martin was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for boarding Connor Kurth at the 11:10 mark, but the Cats and Kirill Gerasimyuk were able to kill off the Lightning’s major power play and get to the locker room in a scoreless tie after one period.
Tampa Bay would open the scoring at the 3:50 mark of the second when Tristan Allard knocked in the rebound of Jan Golicic’s shot from the right point following an offensive zone faceoff.
The Panthers evened it up 1: 20 later when Josh Davies sent the puck back to the right point to Shamar Moses, who was covering for the pinching Ludvig Jansson. Moses side-stepped Aiden Foster and took a shot from the faceoff dot that deflected in off of Kai Schwindt.
Florida forged ahead at 6:15 when Ryan McAllister potted his own rebound after putting his initial shot off the post following a great centering pass from Ben Steeves. The secondary assist on the power-play goal went to Brett Chorske, who worked a give-and-go with Steeves entering the offensive zone off the rush.
The Lightning struck twice late in the middle frame to first tie and then take a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the way.
Marco Mignosa beat Gerasimyuk on a breakaway at 16:08 after taking a head-man pass from Ethan Czata following a Grade-A scoring chance by the Panthers at the other end.
Kaden Pitre finished off Dylan Duke’s pass on a 2-on-1 break 1:42 later for the eventual game-winner.
Caleb Heil got the win in goal, going the distance for the Lightning as did Gerasimyuk for the Panthers, who pushed hard in the third, but could not equalize.
After the game, the teams played a five-round shootout. Moses and Davies scored for the Cats while Pitre was the only successful shooter for the Bolts.
The Panthers will finish off the tournament on Monday when they take on the 2-0 Nashville Predators, who defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 earlier in the day.