Casey Fitzgerald made his Panthers debut and is the cousin of Matthew Tkachuk. He had been a healthy scratch in the previous 19 games. Tanner Jeannot appeared in his first Lightning contest since he was acquired from the Nashville Predators.
Sergei Bobrovsky set an NHL record with most wins by a Russian-born goalie at 354. He was able to pass Evgeni Nabokov.
Florida(30-26-6) speeded out to a 1-0 lead at the 6:19 mark of the first period. Eric Staal got his 12th goal this season on assists from Josh Mahura and Nick Cousins.
The Panthers expanded it to 2-0 with 4:04 left in the first period. Marc Staal poked the puck ahead from the neutral zone and was touched by Tkachuk. Anton Lundell skated into the right circle and snapped a shot for his ninth goal this year.
The Cats made it 3-0 with 2:23 remaining in the first. Anthony Duclair brought the puck to the right of the crease and passed it. Eetu Luostarinen released a forehand shot from the low slot past Andrei Vasilevskiy for his 14th goal of the campaign.
Tampa Bay(37-19-4) cut it to 3-1 on the power play with 9:21 to go in the second period. Brayden Point collected his 37th goal of the season with assists by Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.
Late in the third period, the Lightning pulled their goalie for an extra attacker with 3:36 remaining. Duclair put the puck into an empty net on a feed by Eric Staal with 4.1 seconds left in the third for his first tally of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment