Tampa Bay Lightning: Three notes from preseason win over Florida

The Tampa Bay Lightning took to the ice for their fifth preseason game of the exhibition slate last night in Orlando in the first of three straight matchups with the Florida Panthers.

The Bolts were victorious 2-0 with goals from Tanner Jeannot and Nick Paul in a feisty contest that showed zero love lost between the squads.

Here are three things to take away from the contest.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Jonas Johannson with another shutout

We have expressed our concern with rolling into the season with Johannson as the backup goalie for the Tampa Bay Lightning, let alone as the starter now that Andrei Vasilevskiy is out for two months. Johannson has less than 40 NHL games under his belt and hasn’t looked great in those starts.

But through two outings into the preseason slate, he has yet to allow a goal.

After getting a shutout last week against the Hurricanes, Johannson was back with a 25-save shutout for the Bolts.

He had to fend off five powerplay opportunities and was most under siege in the 2nd period when Florida took 16 shots.

Fight Club

Tampa Bay and Florida combined for 160 penalty minutes in this one. That’s a lot for a regular season game, let alone a preseason game.

But as guys start to feel the regular season around the corner, along with guys still fighting to make the club, nights like this aren’t unheard of in preseason.

Austin Watson is one of those guys for the Lightning trying to scrap his way onto the team as he got into it in the first period with Ryan Lomberg and then again in the second period with Casey Fitzgerald.

With less than four minutes to go in the game, Waltteri Merela, Calvin de Haan, and Tanner Jeannot all got misconduct penalties. This was preceded by a fight Jeannot had in the 3rd period with Niko Mikkola.

If you build it, they will come

The game was held at the Amway Center, and for all the talk that Orlando was going to steal the Tampa Bay Rays, the NHL might want to keep eyeballs on the Happiest Place on Earth (once there with the ability the forget the drive to get there).

A reported 16,802 fans showed up for the preseason game, demonstrating that Florida is capable of being a sneaky hockey state.