In Sunrise, the Panthers scored twice in the third period to snap a 1-1 tie with the Tampa Bay Lightning in a Sunday matinee.
Carter Verhaeghe scored off a power play with 58 seconds gone in the third period to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead.
Mathew Tkachuk added an empty net strike with 2:05 left on the regulation clock for a 3-1 lead.
“I thought we played really well to start the game,” Tkachuk said. “[Bobrovsky] was not really tested and then he got a lot at once including their goal, which we will fix.
“All in all, pretty happy with the start. We had four lines and six defensemen going. When ‘Bob’ was counted on, he came up huge for us.”
Steven Stamkos scored with 10 seconds left on the clock for a 3-2 final count on the scoreboard.
The win gives the Panthers a 1-0 series lead in their first round series with the Lightning.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 17 saves in the win. .
“I think the guys who had the real challenge were in the net,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of the dueling goalies. “There were stretches of grind and there were so many dangerous shooters who have all the shots.”
Game 2 is set for Tuesday in Sunrise.
The Panthers broke on top at 6:17 of the opening stanza on a marker form Sam Reinhart, he scored off a deflection of a shot by Gustav Forsling.
“It is always nice to get off to a good start,” Reinhart said. “We know there is a long way to go. We’re going one day at a time. We had a job to do today, and we executed. Now we rest up, recover and get ready for Game 2.”
Brandon Hagel tied it 1-1 at 16:04 on a rebound of Anthony Cirelli’s shot after the latter won an offensive-zone face-off against Sam Bennett.
“We stuck to our game, but at the end of the day, we took too many penalties and it cost us the game,” Hagel said. “Throughout a series, a team is going to push at you.
“… This is a long series. There is a lot of confidence in this room.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves for the Lightning, the first wild card from the East.
“They are at home, it’s Game 1, the crowd is pumped up and [Florida] had tons of energy,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Give them tons of credit — they went to their game plan, and we abandoned ours before it even started. Give our guys credit — they weathered the storm for 12, 13 minutes and then we played. But that’s the problem — 16 teams are in, and 16 teams are out. The margins of error are much smaller now.”
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