Tampa Bay Lightning thunder their way to preseason history with defeat of in-state Rival

Some may say, “it’s just preseason;” and they’re not wrong, but any time you face a rival opponent, the game means more. And that was the scenario for the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday when they faced off against their in-state rival Florida Panthers for the first time in the preseason.

It was a defensive battle between the teams, but at the end of the night, the Tampa Bay Lightning secured their fifth straight win with a 3-2 win over the Panthers. The Lightning are now a perfect 5-0 on the preseason. This is the first time in franchise history that the Tampa Bay Lightning have started 5-0 and the best start the team has had in preseason play since 2013 when they started 4-0.

Oliver Bjorkstrand put the Lightning on the board first in the first period on a power play goal just over 10 minutes into the period. He was assisted by Darren Raddysh and Gage Goncalves.

The Panthers answered back in the 14th minute on a goal by MacKenzie Entwistle with assists by Wilmer Skoog and Marek Alscher.

Conor Geekie scored the Lightning’s second goal of the night with an unassisted goal at the 11:00 mark of the second period and was followed 28 seconds later by a goal off the stick of Jakob Pelletier with assists by Max Crozier and Emil Lilleberg.

The Lightning took a 3-1 match into the third period looking to hang on for the win. 2:30 into the period Ryan McAllister scored the Panthers’ second goal of the match to make it a 3-2 match with assists by Wilmer Skoog (his second of the day) and Jake livingstone. But Livingstone’s goal was not enough as the Lightning went on to defeat Florida 3-2 to secure their first 5-0 preseason start in team history.

In total, the Lightning out-shot Florida with 29 shots on goal compared to the Panthers’ 19 shots. The Lightning had 20 percent of the power plays compared to zero percent by Florida. The Panthers accrued 17 penalty minutes, while the Lightning accrued just 11.

Defensively, Tampa goalie Jonas Johansson saved 17 of the 19 shots against him. In 59:31 on ice, he saved .895 percent of the shots against him, allowing just two goals.

The 5-0 Tampa Bay Lightning return to Benchmark International Arena on Thursday when they welcome the now 2-3 Florida Panthers for their second matchup of the week. The Lightning will look to use home-ice advantage to take down the Panthers once again and improve to a franchise-best 6-0 preseason start.