The Florida Panthers opened up the 2017-18 regular season with a 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Friday night. Bob Boughner was behind the Florida bench for his first game as the Panthers head coach. The Lightning began their 25th season in the National Hockey League.
Tampa Bay(1-0-0) took a 1-0 lead at 6:33 of the first period. Ondrej Palat skated through the slot area and sent a backhand shot over the left shoulder of Roberto Luongo. The Bolts make it a two-goal lead 25 seconds into the second period as Brayden Point scored an unassisted goal.
Florida(0-1-0) bounced back in the remaining part of the period. Alex Petrovic slid the puck across the crease from the low right circle and Connor Brickley poked in a shot from the blue paint at 12:21.
The Panthers evened it up 2-2 with 2:13 to go in the second. Vincent Trocheck made a turnaround slap shot from the right point that went wide right of the cage. Radim Vrbata chipped the puck on net after it came off the back wall and Mark Pysyk moved to a backhand shot placing it by Andrei Vasilevskiy.
The Bolts regained the lead 3-2 on the power play 59 seconds into the third period. Alex Killorn connected a cross-ice pass from the right wing to Steven Stamkos in the left circle. He passed it to the right side of crease where Vladamir Namestnikov scored on a one-time forehand shot.
The Lightning extended their margin to 4-2 at the 6:38 mark. There was a mad scramble for the puck in the slot area until Nikita Kucherov scored on a wrist shot from the high slot.
The Cats closed the deficit to one goal with 5:30 to go in the third. Jonathan Huberdeau put in a tally off a deflection in the low slot with assists from Evgenii Dadonov and Keith Yandle. Tampa Bay finished the contest on an empty-net goal by Palat with 14 seconds remaining for his second goal of the game.
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