In Sunrise, the Panthers fell behind, 4-0, to the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, before rallying to tighten the final score to a 5-3 loss. 
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 47 saves in the win.
The Lightning moved to 36-25-6 off their third straight win.
Nikita Kucherov had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to 10 games for the
Darren Raddysh stretched the advantage to 3-0 at 3:02, , scoring from the right side.
Stamkos collected his double off a two-skater power play for a 4-0 lead at 6:69.
The Panthers dropped to 45-19-4 off their second straight loss. Their defense has let them down early in the last three matches.
“We have four days of rest, which we need, although that’s not an excuse. We had 50 shots,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We need to get our mental edge back.”
Starting with the four-goal deficit, the Panthers reversed course, and outshot the Lightning, 37-3 for the rest of the match.
“I don’t look at the shot clock, I look at the goal clock,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “In the end, we put ourselves in position in the first 25-30 minutes of that game. … The right team was leading the game. We did everything right to put ourselves in that spot, and we did everything to give it back to them. … If you’re going to give a team like that that many chances with the extra guy, it can pose a problem.”
That’s all well and good, but come playoffs. both clocks need to be managed.
The 37 shots yielded three goals for the Panthers who closed the gap to 4-3.
Matthew Tkachuk started the rally at at 8:23 of the middle frame, scoring shorthanded from the right circle, for a 4-1 score count.
“We definitely played way better when it got to 4-0, but we cannot let it get to 4-0,” Tkachuk said. “Hey, that is on us. We gave up way too many good chances early, and that is not our game. That is not what is going to make us successful.”
Sam Reinhart trimmed the deficit to 4-3 at 11:55 of the second, scoring off a power play.
“We took way too many penalties and put some stress on the [penalty kill], but [Vasilevskiy] made some great saves,” Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said. “We were able to weather the storm. We are not going to apologize for two points.”
Reinhart picked up a double at at 16:08 of the third for a 4-3 score.
“Very good goaltending on the other side,” Reinhart said. “We had some good looks, so give him credit. But that second half, that’s the game we want to play.”
Nikita Kucherov sealed the win for Tampa when he hit an empty net at 18:28 for the 5-3 final count on the scoreboard.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 11 saves in the loss.
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