In Sunrise, Brayden Point scored twice for the Tampa Bay Lighting on Friday night.
“We needed other guys to step up,” Point said. “We’ve got one guy scoring the majority of our goals. We have guys that need to produce, and we’re paid to do that.”
He first goal cam e in the third period to tie the game, 2-2, with the Florida Panthers.
“It’s always a tough night against these guys, it’s always a fun game,” Point said. “They are fast games with tight checking. It’s nice to get a win.”
His Second strike came in extra time, off the power play for a 3-2 win.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves in the Tampa win.
Steven Stamkos opened the scoring in the game with a power play goal to give Tampa a 1-0 lead.
The Lighting were 2-for-7 on the power play; Florida was scoreless in five chances.
“A lot of good things we can build off in our game,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “Both teams found their way to the box. We needed more discipline, but we have to play with energy. We’re still learning how to do that.”
Matthew Tkachuk scored to get the game even at 1-1.
“We’ve been struggling a bit early, so to get a good win against a good team like that is hopefully something that can kick start some momentum for us moving forward,” Stamkos said. “We just wanted to go out, play hard and whatever happens, happens. You do that and you get rewarded.”
Rudolfs Balcers hit for a goal in the middle frame to push the Panthers into a 2-1 lead.
“It was a typical Tampa-Florida game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It had everything, but our special teams were big tonight. I think that was the difference. I just liked our fight in the third.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 29 saves in the Panthers loss.
“It was a good game,” Bobrovsky said. “I thought it was tight, but unfortunately we didn’t get the two points. We get the one and we’ll move on.”
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