A three-goal second period was enough to take the wind out of the sails of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night in Sunrise.
The Florida Panthers potted three goals and defused the Lightning, 5-2.
It was the first big test for the Panthers this season and they aced the midterms.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves in the win.
“Obviously we’re excited about playing this and meeting a big challenge today,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “I thought the approach was outstanding with the guys, the excitement on the bench during the game. Obviously, next game is going to be a bigger challenge, but at the same time the excitement and the purpose behind how we played today was exactly how it had to be in order to be successful, and the execution, I couldn’t have been happier.”
Brayden Point scored both goals for the Lightning.
“We competed harder and got more physical in that third period, so we need to take the positives from that and bring it over into the next [game],” Point said. “We showed we wanted the puck and started winning some battles. That’s a great hockey team over there, and we have to be ready for the next one. They exposed us with their speed, and we have to try to counter that and come ready to play.”
Tampa dropped to 9-2-1.
“There were spots in the game when we were OK, but for the most part we just played slow tonight for whatever reason,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said after Tampa Bay had 41 shot attempts to 51 for Florida. “We’ve got better in us and we have to pick up our pace. We didn’t shoot nearly enough pucks. We have to be a little more determined around their net.”
Aaron Ekblad and Alex Wennberg had a goal and two points apiece in the Florida win.
“It’s definitely a big win for us,” Bobrovsky said. “Tampa is a really good team. They’re really balanced throughout the lineup. But I thought we played better than them tonight. We played all zones. We played great defensively, we played great offensively. It’s a well-deserved win for us and we move on. … We have to enjoy it tonight and prepare for the next game against them. We’re going to see a different team. It’s going to be even more interesting to compete against them next game.”
Florida moved to 8-1-2.
Frank Vatrano and Carter Verhaeghe also scored for the Panthers.
“It was great (taking an early lead), especially against a team that’s so talented and has been good for such a long time,” Vatrano said. “We knew we had to start out on the right foot. We need to take the game to them, we can’t wait around and feed into their transition game that they want to play. We need to play hard-nosed hockey, and we did that for a full 60.”
Brett Connolly added an empty-net goal with 60 seconds left for the final.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 save in the loss.
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