Tampa Bay Lightning split season-opening series with 5-4 loss to Panthers

The Tampa Bay Lightning split their back-to-back season-opening series with their in-state rivals, the Florida Panthers after a 5-4 defeat at the BB&T Center in Sunrise.

The Tampa Bay Lightning exceeded everyone’s expectations when they kicked off their 25^th Anniversary Season with a 5-3 victory over their in-state rivals, the Florida Panthers. Unfortunately, the Lightning didn’t have any time to celebrate their victory.

Tonight, the Lightning made their way to the BB&T Center in Sunrise to do it all over again with their not-so-friendly neighborhood Panthers. The question on top of everyone’s minds is whether or not the Lightning would be able to spoil the Panthers’ Home Opener with another notch in the win column.

It was pretty apparent the Lightning came into Sunrise tonight ready to put a damper on the Panthers’ Opening Night celebration. In fact, the Bolts wasted no time in getting down to business. Just 3:30 into the first period, the Lightning drew first blood with a goal from Nikita Kucherov, who picked up his 2^nd goal of the season.

Tampa Bay Lightning

About a minute later, the Lightning would find themselves with the man-advantage as Panthers forward Vincent Trocheck would find himself with a one-way ticket to the sin bin for High Sticking against Lightning forward Tyler Johnson. This would give the Bolts just the opportunity they needed to increase their lead.

A mere 22 seconds into the Power Play, the Lightning would strike the net once again with a goal from forward Vladislav Namestnikov, who also picked up his second goal of the season. It became rather apparent the Lightning was going to be a thorn in the side of Panthers goaltender James Reimer.

Unfortunately for the Lightning, the Panthers were not willing to head back down the tunnel to the locker room empty-handed. At 11:12 into the period, the Lightning would be headed to the Penalty Kill as Kucherov made his way to the box for Tripping Trocheck.

This opened the door for the Panthers to pick up a Power Play goal of their own as forward Evgenii Dadonov found his way past Andrei Vasilevskiy and into the back of the net. It almost seems as if the Lightning got their two-goal lead over the Panthers and started to settle in on their heels.

When the buzzer ended to conclude the first period of play, the Panthers had effectively outshot the Lightning 24-8. That’s right, Bolts fans…the Panthers outshot the Lightning by a 3:1 ratio in the first 20 minutes of play. This is not what we call defending our goaltender. Fans hoped this wouldn’t continue into the next period.

The bad news is, the Lightning would have to kill off the remainder of a Slashing penalty to Brayden Point when the two teams hit the ice for the second period of play. The Lightning would manage to kill off the penalty, but this wouldn’t prevent the Panthers from tying things up.

Panthers forward Nick Bjugstad was able to pick up a cross-ice pass and snipe Vasilevskiy to tie things up. As you can imagine, this was pretty frustrating for Lightning fans. Apparently, the Lightning felt the same frustration. The Lightning seemed to kick things up a little as the period rolled on.

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Just past the halfway point in the period, Brayden Point would pick up a goal we’re pretty sure Reimer wants back. For a moment, it almost seemed as if Reimer stopped and watched as the puck trickled past him and into the back of the net, returning the lead to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

While the Lightning may have held the lead when the second period came to a close, they weren’t really “winning” the game. In the second period, the Panthers continued to dominate the Lightning when it came to shots on goal. The Panthers outshot the Bolts 16-7 in the second period for a two-period total of 40-15.

Yes, you heard that correctly. The Florida Panthers had already registered 40 (that’s 4-0) shots on goal through 40 minutes of play. Needless to say, Andrei Vasilevskiy has bailed the Bolts out a time or two tonight.

Regrettably, things would take a turn for the worse for the Lightning when they took the ice for the third period of play. At 6:06 in the third period, things would start to unravel for the Bolts. This would be thanks to Panthers forward Colton Sceviour who snuck one right past Vasilevskiy.

This would be what would seem the beginning of the end for the Lightning. The Panthers would continue to punish the Lightning with a series of goals from Jared McCann and Vincent Trocheck respectively. The McCann goal would be reviewed due to possible goaltender interference, but ultimately it would be ruled a good goal and the Panthers would snatch the lead right out of the hands of the Bolts.

Things definitely looked grim for the Bolts at this point, but the good news here is the Lightning hadn’t given up on their fans just yet. Lightning forward Tyler Johnson would find himself in the perfect place at the perfect time to get his stick on the puck and drive one in past Reimer to cut the Panthers lead to one.

Unfortunately, this would be the end of the line for the Bolts. The Bolts would pull Vasy with around two minutes left in the game to get an extra skater on the ice, but when the buzzer sounded, the Panthers would emerge victoriously and cut the back-to-back series in half.

The Tampa Bay Lightning had a decent amount of offensive production (quality, not quantity) but the team still has quite a few things to work on. There is absolutely no reason for a team as talented as the Lightning to be outshot 48-30 by an opponent. Keep in mind, 15 of those shots were in the third period.

As easy as it would be to pin the loss on Vasilevskiy, the truth of the matter is with the exception of one goal he really should’ve had, Vasy did everything he possibly could to keep the Lightning in the game. Again, he did have to face 48 shots on goal tonight, stopping all but 5.

On the bright side, the Tampa Bay Lightning has the day off tomorrow. This will give the Bolts some much-needed rest before they head back to the Amalie Arena to take on the Washington Capitals on Monday night.

The Lightning is definitely going to need to be much more aggressive with the puck and do a drastically better job of protecting their goaltender if they want to pick up the two points against the Capitals. Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin has scored seven goals in just two games. Needless to say, the Bolts defense is going to have their work cut out for them on Monday night.

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Hopefully, the day off will afford the Lightning the time they need to regroup and get things back on the right track before their showdown with the Capitals on Monday night. As we mentioned before, there’s a lot of work to be done, but the Lightning has the talent needed to get the job done.