SUNRISE, Fla – Millions of people visit South Florida every year to experience a slice of tropical paradise. But for the Tampa Lightning it has been more like a haunted ghost tour. Winners in only 13 of the past 46 trips to the Bank Atlantic Center the Lightning came to South Beach with a 3-0 record and fresh off wins in Montreal and Philadelphia. The Florida Panthers have had trouble scoring with only 6 goals in three games away from South Florida to open the season. But they celebrated their return to the Sunshine State and home opener with six more goals on the way to their second consecutive shutout win. The Cats stormed out of the locker room out-shooting the Lightning 7-1 in the first five minutes. “They came out hard tonight” Lightning Coach Guy Boucher said. “In all the exhibition games and in our first three games we never came close to anything like that. Everything we did was off tonight. Give them credit they played well, they played hard.” “You play 82 games and you are going to have about ten like this. Let’s hope the next one is far away.” Cory Stillman’s goal at 1:50 of the period was all they could get past Tampa goalie Dan Ellis over the first 14 minutes. But throughout the first 20 minutes Florida kept the Lightning on the defensive and the Bolts were only able muster 5 shots on goal through 15:00. But when David Booth picked up a rebound and scored the first of his two goals at 14:25, it set off a three goal outburst over the next 3:50 to send the Panthers into the locker room with a 4-0 cushion and send the Lightning well on the way to another unpleasant visit to Fort Lauderdale. It was a short night for Ellis who was pulled in favor of Mike Smith after the third Florida score. “We were just trying to shake something, we didn’t shake much” Boucher said. For Tampa it was a stark contrast to the way they had opened the season in Tampa just a week earlier. While the avalanche of goals late in the period that sealed Tampa’s fate. Right from the first shift Florida was able to bottle up the Lightning. “They were doing good hard fore-checking but similar to Montreal, similar to Philadelphia, but even when there was nobody we couldn’t even complete a pass to each other.” Boucher said. David Booth led the charge with his first two goals of the season as he appeared to slip past the Tampa defense all night long. He added an assist on the last Panther goal to complete a three point night. For Tomas Vokoun, who entered the game with a 1.69 GAA, and fresh off his first shutout of the season, the four goal lead after one period was more than he would need. He stretched his scoreless streak to 125:08 and was seldom tested. Perfect on the penalty kill through the first three games, the Panthers extended that streak 8 straight kills by killing both Tampa opportunities in the second period to preserve the advantage. Brian McCabe and Rostislav Olesz also had three points each for the Panthers who move to 2-3 on the season. The undefeated Dallas Stars are up next for both teams, as they travel to Tampa on Monday and Florida on Thursday. Contact Joe.Malta@prohockeynews.com
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