The Florida Panthers fell behind by four before mounting a intense comeback effort that ulitmately came up short in a 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightnng at Amerant Bank Arena.
Steven Stamkos scored twice an added two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 47 of 50 shots as the Lightning held on to avoid getting swept by the Cats in the season series.
Stamkos’ first goal came 20 seconds after opening puck drop when his pass attempt on a 2-on-1 break with Brandon Hagel was blocked by Brandon Montour’s skate and then dragged in underneath Sergei Bobrovsky. The lone assist on the goal went to Erik Cernak.
Mikey Eyssimont got behind the defense to take a pass from Nick Paul and converted the breakaway at 13:21 to put the Lightning up by two. Bobrovsky made the intial save, but Eyssimont took a second snipe that was successful. Nick Perbix was credited with the secondary assist.
Florida went down by three for the third straight game when Stamkos gained the zone and dished off to former Panther Anthony Duclair. Duclair crossed back to Darren Raddysh, who was trailing the play, and he beat Bobrovsky with a bullet of a wrister from the right circle 3:02 into the middle frame.
The Lightning would take quickly take advantage of a hooking call on Oliver Ekman-Larsson, that came with Dmitry Kulikov already assessed a major penalty and kicked out of the game, to grow the lead to four at 6:59. After winning the draw, Tampa Bay fanned out and Victor Hedman traded passes with Nikita Kucherov before setting up Stamkos for a one-timer from the left circle. The power-play marker was the 209th of Stamkos’ career, tying him with Gordie Howe for fourth-most in NHL history with a single team.
Before Kulikov’s match penalty, which cost Josh Mahura a goal, came to end, the Lightning got greedy and paid for it. A pass in front didn’t click and four Tampa Bay skaters got trapped down low, allowing Mahura to trigger a 3-on-1 break. Matthew Tkachuk crusied up ince, entered the zone and wired in a wrister at 8:23 to get the Cats on the board.
Florida would halve the deficit 3:32 later, with Luke Glendening off for holding. After Vladimir Tarasenko’s pass caught Montour’s skates, Tkachuk let go of a slapper that struck Sam Bennett in front. Sam Reinhart collected the rebound and deftly deposited it around a helpless Vasilevskiy for his 47th goal.
Reinhart would score again, with 3:52 left in regulation, to pull the Panthers within one. After Calvin de Haan lost an edge behind the net, Reinhart claimed the puck and shot it in off the skate of Glendening before Vasilevskiy could get back in position.
The Cats had a glorious chance to tie, but Vasilevskiy would absolutely rob Aleksander Barkov on a rebound chance after first making a pad save on Tkachuk’s sharp angle shot.
It took two tries for Hagel to set up Kucherov for the clinching empty-netter, which happened at 18:28, with the secondary helper going to Stamkos. Game over, man. Game over.
That’s three tilts in a row that the Panthers have put themselves in a deep hole. They dug out in Dallas, didn’t even pick up a shovel in Raleigh, and almost pulled off another stunning comeback yesterday. The Cats are on a losing streak for the first time in almost two months and have dropped three of their last five games. They’ll get a much-needed four days off before facing the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.
Bolts & Dolts
- Florida’s terrible start cost them a season series sweep of the Lightning for the first time since the 1998-99 season, the one and only time that ever happened. The Panthers utterly dominated the second half of the game, but they need to start answering the opening bell again.
- Andrei Vasilevskiy was huge in third period, stopping 19 of 20 Florida shots, after turning away 16 of 18 in second, to get his reeling team over the finish line.
- Red-hot Sam Reinhart has scored nine goals over the last nine games. He is up to 48 goals, with 32 of them coming on special teams. Reinhart finished the tilt with six shots on goal.
- Nikita Kucherov’s second period assist extended his point streak to ten games and his clinching goal was his 40th of the season. Kucherov is the sixth NHLer to hit the 40-mark in 2023-24.
- Wouldn’t classify any of the goals as bad, but Sergei Bobrovsky allowed four of them on just 15 shots.
- For more on the season series finale, stop by Raw Charge. Maybe we’ll see these guys again in the playoffs.