For the second straight night, special teams proved to be the difference between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers. This time it was the Lightning coming out on the right side of the penalty battle as they converted a first-period power play and killed off four Panther power plays, including a lengthy 5-on-3 and a three-minute major in their 4-0 win. Jonas Johansson only needed one of those goals as he stopped all 36 shots as he picked up his fourth career shutout and third as a member of the Lightning.
The Bolts came to Sunrise a little short-handed as Conor Geekie wasn’t available after he had a couple of run-ins with the boards in the Lightning’s 4-2 loss on Sunday. That didn’t stop them from starting the game off strong as they carried the play early in the first period. Unlike in some previous match-ups with the Panthers, they were able to turn that pressure into goals.
Nikita Kucherov, who was stopped on a breakaway on his first shift of his game, wasn’t denied a second time as he backhanded a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky just under seven minutes into the game. The play was started when Anthony Cirelli interrupted an attempted outlet pass by the Panthers.
Nikita Kucherov (Victor Hedman, Anthony Cirelli) 1-0 Lightning
It was a four-on-four goal for the Lightning as Emil Lilleberg and A.J. Greer kicked off a night of penalties with matching roughing calls. Tampa Bay kept dictating the play and were able to get another one past Bobrovsky a few minutes later when Brandon Hagel dropped a pass off for Jake Guentzel. The shot from Guentzel was quick and accurate as it whistled by Bobrovsky to double the lead.
Jake Guentzel (Brandon Hagel, Victor Hedman) 2-0
Bobrovsky often looks a little shaky early in games, but in nights past the Lightning haven’t been able to take advantage of it. On Monday, they would get three past him in the first period, with the third coming on the power play. With Geekie out of the game, the second unit was a little mixed up, but Mitchell Chaffee was on the ice and in the right spot to bat a rebound past Bobrovsky for his seventh goal of the season.
Mitchell Chaffee (Anthony Cirelli, Nick Paul) Power Play, 3-0
Up until this point, tensions had been building up throughout the first period as both teams were finishing hits and more than willing to scrum it up during stoppages of play. With just over three minutes to go in the period, those tensions boiled over as Nikita Kucherov went knee-first into Matthew Tkachuk.
Lightning lead 3-0 after 20 minutes. Tkachuk down the tunnel after this knee-on-knee hit from Kucherov late in the period. Kucherov received a major and a misconduct.
— Jameson Olive (@jamesonolive.bsky.social) December 23, 2024 at 7:59 PM
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Kucherov was assessed a five-minute major penalty for kneeing and a game misconduct. To his credit, he didn’t swing his leg out to make contact or alter his path, but he led with his knee, and by definition that is a penalty. Will he get a call from the league office? Hopefully not.
On the play, Aaron Ekblad was also hit with a roughing penalty as he tackled Kucherov following the hit. That cut the Panthers’ five-minute major down to a two-minute four-on-four session followed by a three-minute major which carried over into the second period. The Lightning killed it all off.
They did such a good job that they went right back on the penalty kill when Victor Hedman was whistled for holding. To make matters worse, Erik Cernak joined The Big Swede in the box 35 seconds later after he laid out Mackie Samoskevich along the boards. Those penalties were also killed off.
The refs weren’t done for the night as Dmitry Kulikov laid out Gage Goncalves with a clean open ice hit that the Lightning took exception to. That led to Nick Paul and Kulikov being hit with 10-minute misconducts while Greer and Lilleberg picked up their second roughing calls of the night.
The underlying stats tilted in the home team’s favor during the second period as the Tampa Bay mixed-and-matched their way through the period with just 10 forwards while Paul was serving his misconduct. In this type of game, the stats lose a little bit of meaning. Lines are jumbled up, non-special teams players are sitting for long stretches of time, and there is little flow in the game. It becomes more a game of survival than of any coordinated defensive plan.
While Florida might have been piling up the scoring chances (they had 26 through the first 40 minutes) Johansson was calmly holding the line. Several times he had to flash the pads out to deny in-close opportunities. While he was certainly busy all night long, at no point did he look rushed or hurried as he calmly pushed aside shot after shot.
The Panthers made several pushes in the third period, but couldn’t crack the Bolts’ defense, who allowed just three high-danger chances in the final period. Aided by a copious amount of power play time, Florida racked up 40 scoring chances on the night, but just 13 of those were considered high-danger. There was a lot of bending, but the Bolts didn’t break in their own zone.
With time dwindling, the Panthers elected to pull Bobrovsky while they were on a power play for the six-on-four skater advantage. Erik Cernak blocked a shot from the point and Brandon Hagel scooped up the loose puck. Hagel flung the puck down the ice with just the right amount of english on it to curl into the empty net.
Brandon Hagel (Erik Cernak) Short-handed, Empty Net, 4-0 Lightning
The victory was the Lightning’s first in five tries against divisional foes and they picked up two points on the second place Toronto Maple Leafs who had lost earlier in the day.
