Panthers Fall To Lightning

     The Florida Panthers played their last preseason game as they lost the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 at BB&T Center on Saturday night. Both clubs will meet each other for the season opener in Tampa on October 6.
     Florida got out to a 1-0 lead at 11:00 of the first period. Mike Hoffman threaded a pass to Jonathan Huberdeau on the right wing. He skated into the Bolts zone on a breakaway and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot through the pads.
     Tampa Bay tied it up at the 12:01 mark. Roberto Luongo made the initial save on a close range shot from Danick Martel and Cory Conacher poked in the rebound from the blue paint. The Panthers had upper-body injuries to Keith Yandle and Bogdan Kiselevich and were forced to play with four defensemen for the rest of the game.
     In the second period, the Lightning made a bad pass in their own zone that landed on the stick of Denis Malgin in the right circle. He was hooked from behind by Victor Hedman and the Cats had their first power play of the game.
     The Panthers converted on it after they peppered the Tampa Bay cage with several shots. Aleksander Barkov fed a pass from the high slot to Hoffman in the top right circle and he blasted in a one-time slap shot at 8:49.
     The Lightning evened it up 2-2 with 13:26 left in the third period. Mathieu Joseph picked up the puck at the Panthers blue line, dashed around one defender and snapped a shot from the low right circle past Luongo.
     The Bolts attacked out of their zone into the Panthers zone as Ryan McDonagh carried the pass. He dropped a pass to Steven Stamkos in the high slot and his shot was blocked. It came back to Mikhail Sergachev at the top of the zone and his slap shot was redirected in by J.T. Miller in the crease for a 3-2 lead with 6:49 remaining.