The Florida Panthers are heading to the holiday break after a stinker of an effort on Monday night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning thrashed the Panthers, 6-1, in Tampa behind Andrei Vasilevskiy‘s 29 saves. 
“These are the teams we’re chasing,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “We’re running through the division now. … We’ve got to start gaining points, and this was a good first step.”
Jonathan Huberdeau was the Panthers’ lone goal scorer.
The Lightning came out with a three-goal first period to take the game out of the Panthers’ reach.
Victor Hedman struck for two goals in the win and added an assist.
“They got the early lead on the first shift and kind of kept pushing the whole period and got three goals,” the Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov said. “Against this team, it’s tough to come back from any lead. I mean, they are a good team, but we needed to play a lot better.”
Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Mikhail Sergachev, and Alex Killorn added single markers for the Bolts.
“We love these kinds of games, they are important games for the team, and we like to be in these situations,” Hedman said. “We have to rise to the occasion. We did that today, and we have to do that in the upcoming games as well.”
[WATCH: All Panthers vs. Lightning highlights]
Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves in the loss.
“Obviously we came out flat, we got outworked and outplayed in all areas,” Bobrovsky said. “We can’t do that, especially to a division opponent.”
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