A much more physical Tampa Bay Lightning played vastly better than they did in Game 1, but couldn’t find the back of the net as they dropped Game 2 to the Florida Panthers, 2-0. Nate Schmidt scored his third goal of the series while Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves to pick up the victory. Andrei Vasilevskiy rebounded with 21 saves, including a stellar stop on a breakaway seconds into the game.
Anthony Cirelli was able to skate, and Coach Cooper opted to go with twelve forwards as Mitchell Chaffee cycled into the line-up. Darren Raddysh was scratched.
The story of the game was the Panthers’ penalty kill. After their power play had a perfect night in Game 1, the other side of special teams’ coin posted a 5-for-5 effort against one of the top power play teams in the regular season. Tampa Bay’s short-handed unit matched their effort with a 3-for-3 outing of their own, including a key major penalty in the third period.
After falling behind early in Game 1, the Lightning wanted to get off to a fast start. Florida had other plans as old friend Carter Verhaeghe busted in on a breakaway thirty seconds into the game, but Andrei Vasilevskiy denied him to keep the Bolts out of the early deficit. With that early gaffe out of the way, the Bolts pushed the play back into the Florida zone and had a couple of chances of their own. Unfortunately, the puck didn’t want to go into it’s home on Jake Guentzel’s chance from the far post, nor on Brayden Point’s attempt from the slot after a nifty pass from Conor Geekie put Point in front of Bobrovsky all alone.
Point’s shot might have gone wide, but the Lightning drew a penalty and then promptly did little with it. Shortly after, the Panthers won a face-off in the Lightning zone and they worked it back to Nate Schmidt. The second coming of Bobby Orr blasted a shot from at the top of right circle and beat Vasilevskiy cleanly.
Nate Schmidt (Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov) 1-0 Panthers
It was another early goal for the Panthers, who promptly settled into their counter-attack mode that makes them so dangerous with the lead. To the Lightning’s credit, they played with a lot more pace in this game, with a slight dose of much-needed desperation to their offense. They worked on getting the puck in the zone and moving it quickly around the ice. They racked up five high-danger chances, but just couldn’t get the puck on net from in tight. Mitchell Chaffee had a nice tip off of the rush, but the puck pinwheeled over the net.
In the second period, the hitting picked up as did the animosity on the ice. For the first time in the series, the Lighting looked like they knew they were in a playoff series. Unfortunately, their inability to finish Grade A chances continued as well. Jake Guentzel was wide open in the crease with Bobrovsky almost completely out of the picture, but he couldn’t get his stick on the puck.
The Bolts had their cycle game going, keeping the Panthers defense on the ice for almost an entire two-minute stretch at one point, but Florida did a good job of keeping most of the action to the perimeter. A seeing-eye shot from Erik Cernak forced a reaction save from Bobrovsky, and the Lightning went down a player as Guentzel was called for slashing.
The Lightning penalty kill resembled their regular season form during the ensuing two minutes, and Vasilevskiy made a nice glove save on Sam Bennett, and then followed it up by stopping Nate Schmidt. The short-handed situation was erased when Carter Verhaeghe boarded Brandon Hagel, which touched off the first of many jersey-tugging intensive scrums of the period.
The Bolts couldn’t take advantage of the power play, but it seemed the scrum lit a bit of a fire under them as they started to finish their checks, and surprising the Panthers a bit with the ramped-up physical play. Tampa Bay started to find some seams in the Florida defense and Brayden Point had an open look at Bobrovsky off of a rush, but the goaltender got his shoulder on it to keep it out of the net.
The period ended with a handful of penalties. First it was Guentzel with a roughing call. As the whistle blew to end the period, the two teams tangled behind the Lightning net with Anthony Cirelli and Matthew Tkachuk taking unsportsmanlike calls.
Tampa Bay’s penalty kill came through, killing off the Guentzel penalty, and were able to draw a penalty as Dmitry Kulikov lumberjacked Victor Hedman’s stick out of his hands on an odd-man opportunity for the Bolts. Florida’s penalty killers were up to the task yet again as they conceded zero space to the Lightning and another chance went by the wayside.
Tempers ramped up midway through the period when Brandon Hagel laid out Florida captain, Aleksander Barkov with a clean shoulder-to-chest hit while the Lightning were on another power play. The only issue with the hit was that the puck was nowhere near the play. After the scrum was cleared, the referees confirmed that Hagel had earned a five-minute major. Unfortunately for the Panthers, Barkov was shaken up by the hit and went to the locker room, and did not return.
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The Lightning were able to kill off the short-handed situation, but another four-plus minutes came off of the clock. Coach Cooper showed a bit of restraint, not pulling Vasilevskiy until there was under three minutes on the clock. With the extra skater, the Lightning would get two looks, but Point wasn’t able to redirect Kucherov’s centering pass, than Guentzel’s attempt from the goalline skittered through the crease without hitting anything (it actually slid under the skate Evan Rodrigues).
Sam Bennett made anyone who had the Panthers -1.5 goals happy as he slid home an empty-net goal from center ice to make it 2-0.
