In Sunrise, the Panthers opened the back of half of their season with a 7-1 thrashing of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves in the Panthers win, it was Paul Maurice’s 800th win as an NHL coach.
“It’s great to have a big number win like that to feel good,” Maurice said. “But we had such an emotional win against Boston (before the All-Star break), and then you don’t get to kind of build off of it; you leave town. To come back to have another one, we can be real positive about the direction.”
Matthew Tkachuk picked up a pair of markers and had five points in the win.
“I’m tired now, it’s definitely a long weekend,” Tkachuk said. “But I had an unreal time this weekend, and then nothing better than coming back and seeing the guys again. We’re looking forward to the last really good home stretch to finish off the year, and it started tonight.”
Nikita Kucherov was the lone striker for the Lightning, his goal came in the middle frame after the game had already been decided.
“I want to say that we’re still on vacation, but their will to win was a little bit stronger than ours tonight,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I just thought it was too easy a night for them in our zone. Hence, the result happened.”
Tampa dropped to 32-16-1.
“We didn’t play well, so I’m not sure there’s any rhyme or reason,” Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos said. “So, thankfully we play again tomorrow and we just wipe that one because there’s not going to be much good coming out of that one, obviously.”
Carter Verhaeghe scored in the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Panthers.
The Panthers improved to 25-22-6.
Sam Bennett extended the advantage to 2-0 in the middle frame, before Kucherov hot for the Lightning.
Tkachuk hit for his first of the night, and Eetu Luostarinen added a single marker in the second for a 4-1 lead headed to the third.
“Everybody contributed,” Tkachuk said. “‘Bob’ made some huge saves when it was 2-1 and 3-1 that allowed us to get that fourth. I thought we kept playing our game. Lots of shots, but it’s one thing to get a lot of shots, I thought we had a lot of good looks.”
Eric Staal pushed the lead to 5-1 early in the third.
Verhaeghe and Tkachuk each hit for their doubles in the third for the 7-1 final.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 42 saves in the Tampa loss.
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