An early third period goal by old friend Carter Verhaeghe had the Tampa Bay Lightning chasing a one-goal deficit for most of the third period, and despite a late goal from Steven Stamkos, they couldn’t catch the Florida Panthers in Game One of the NHL playoffs. The Panthers used goals from Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, and Verhaeghe along with 17 saves, including three big ones in the third period, by Sergei Bobrovsky for the 3-2 win.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 25 of 27 shots while Brandon Hagel and Stamkos had the goals for the Bolts. Tyler Motte and Luke Glendening were back in the line-up for the Bolts after missing games at the end of the regular season with injuries.
[Game Center] [Natural Stat Trick] [The Lines] [Event Summary]
First Period
Playing in front of their home crowd in the playoffs for the first time since losing the Stanley Cup to the Vegas Golden Knights, the Panthers came out flying. The Lightning, well, they did some of the things we were worried about. Poor clearing attempts and turnovers allowed Florida to get their cycle game going which led to a substantial amount of shot attempts. More importantly, it kept the Lightning from really getting anything done offensively. Like, anything at all. As in zero shots on goal for more than half the period.
Just over six minutes into the game, Florida struck first as Vladimir Tarasenko stepped around Darren Raddysh along the boards. Aleksander Barkov tapped it back to Gustav Forsling. The shot from the point was tipped in front by Sam Reinhart and the building was rocking.
Things went from bad to worse as Nick Perbix was whistled for holding. However, the fifth-ranked penalty kill in the regular season seemed to calm the team down a bit. They held the Panthers off the board and eventually started to find their offensive legs. A shot from the side of the net from Mikey Eyssimont at the 15:55 mark was the first shot on net for the Lightning, and it led to a face-off in the offensive zone.
The Lightning won it and Anthony Cirelli made a nice move to step inside his defender and get a quality shot that Sergei Bobrovsky kicked out to the slot – right where Brandon Hagel was waiting to put home the rebound. Just like that the game was tied.
The final five minutes of the period was a lot cleaner for the Lightning and they almost pulled out a lead when Eyssimont circled onto a loose puck in the Panthers zone and had a clean look at the net. His shot grazed the upper side of the crossbar just before the buzzer sounded.
Second Period
The second period didn’t feature any goals, but there were some interesting moments during the 20 minutes. Both teams got to display their special teams as the Panthers went up by a skater first when Steven Stamkos went to the box for hooking. It was another strong kill for the Lightning, but Florida returned the favor six minutes later and easily killed off Tampa Bay’s first chance on the power play.
Throughout the period, the offense took back seat to the defense for both sides. After the two teams combined for 12 high-danger chances at 5v5 in the first 20 minutes, there were only six total in the middle frame, including on the power plays. The Lightning were much cleaner with their breakouts and were dedicated to make sure any time the Panthers were in their zone, the puck was played along the perimeter.
It was the Lightning’s top line that had the best chance with an extended shift in the Panthers’ zone, but Kucherov wasn’t able to connect on a one-timer and Bobrovsky stopped Point on a tipped-shot from in front of the net. Other than that, Florida did a really good job of limiting the Lightning’s chances, holding them to just 3 in the period.
The hitting continued with the teams combining for 77 hits through 40 minutes. The refs were letting the teams play as both sides were allowed to retaliate with hits away from the puck, including one by Eetu Luostarinen after Matt Dumba leveled Kevin Stenlund with a shoulder-to-shoulder hit.
A bit of an undisciplined penalty by Nick Paul late in the period allowed the Panthers to carry a power play into the third period.
Third Period
There is likely no correlation between the two, but bad penalties always seem to end up in the back of the net. In this case the axiom proved to be the truth as Aleksander Barkov steamed a back-door pass to a cutting Carter Verhaeghe who deflected it in past Vasilevskiy just 58 seconds into the period.
Following the goal, Florida did an excellent job of not allowing the Lightning much room in the neutral zone as the Bolts went more than eight minutes without a shot on goal. Tampa Bay was forced to dump the puck in deep and chase, but the home team defenders were able to get to the puck and clear rather easily.
Eventually, the Bolts were able to start generating some chances, but time was the Lightning’s biggest enemy by then. With three minutes to go, Coach Cooper pulled the goaltender for the extra skater and it almost paid off as Steven Stamkos had a great look at a one-timer, but Bobrovsky kicked out his right pad for the save. Matthew Tkachuk would get to a loose puck near center ice shortly after the save and slide it into the empty net for the 3-1 lead.
Florida made it closer than they needed to with less than two minutes to go as Carter Verhaeghe crosschecked Kucherov at the blueline as the Art Ross winner was reaching up for the puck. With a six-on-four advantage, the Lightning had a glorious chance in the slot, but Bob came out and smothered Brayden Point’s chance.
Stamkos would eventually get on the board as he roofed a Kucherov cross-ice feed just under the bar for his first goal of the postseason. Unfortunately, with just nine seconds to go, there wasn’t enough time to build on it and Game One went in Florida’s favor.
The two teams will be back at it on Tuesday for Game Two in Sunrise.
The Goals
Sam Reinhart (1) [Gustav Forsling (1), Aleksander Barkov (1)] 1-0 Panthers
Brandon Hagel (1) [Anthony Cirelli (1), Steven Stamkos (1)] 1-1
Carter Verhaeghe (1) [Aleksander Barkov (2), Matthew Tkachuk (1)] Power Play, 2-1 Panthers
Matthew Tkachuk (1) [Aaron Ekblad (1)] Empty Net, 3-1 Panthers
Steven Stamkos (1) [Nikita Kucherov (1), Brayden Point (1)] Power Play, 3-2 Panthers
