In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers’ Mike Hoffman struck for a hat trick in a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“We want to make sure we play well at home and it will be a tough two points for teams coming in here,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Great crowd, great energy. We had some great momentum with [Hoffman] on a roll there. When you play big down at the end, you find a way to win. That will help us going forward.”
Sergei Bobrovsky got the win for the Panthers on the strength of 30 saves; he made two big saves in the last four seconds of regulation
“Those are the reasons why we won this hockey game,” Hoffman said of Bobrovsky. “Without those saves, they probably have seven or eight (goals) and it’s a different story. But he kept us in it, gave everyone life on the bench, and then we went out there and were able to capitalize on a couple of our chances.”
Gemel Smith, Steven Stamkos and Mathieu Joseph scored for Tampa.
“Right now you sit back, it’s a loss, but a lot to build on,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Unfortunately, we lost tonight, but I didn’t think they really took it to us tonight. We had our chances to win it and they just got the better of us.”
Noel Acciari also scored for the Panthers.
[WATCH: All Lightning vs. Panthers highlights]
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves in the loss.
“What I really liked was our push back,” Cooper said. “It was tough giving up that goal early in the third, but I thought we took over the game, even down 4-1, and had our chances at the end and unfortunately we couldn’t do it.”
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