SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers failed to capitalize on home-ice advantage, falling 5-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of their first-round series on April 26.
Florida got star defenseman Aaron Ekblad back from a 20-game suspension, with captain Aleksander Barkov returning after leaving Game 2 with an injury with 10 minutes to go.
Even with star winger Brandon Hagel serving a one-game suspension, Tampa Bay’s high-end talent came to play to help it avoid a three-game hole. Jake Guentzel scored two points and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 of 34 shots to make it a 2-1 series lead for Florida.
Matthew Tkachuk gave the Panthers the early lead 2:43 into the game. He picked up a feed from Sam Bennett and tucked it home on his backhand for his third goal of the postseason.
Brayden Point tied the game up for Tampa Bay with 2:45 to go in the first period. He deflected Guentzel’s shot past Sergei Bobrovsky after Guentzel blew past Sam net and fired a shot through traffic to give Tampa its first goal since the 13:04 mark of the second period of Game 1.
The floodgates opened for Tampa. Nick Paul gave the Lightning the 2-1 lead with a quick snap shot on a 2-on-1 with 6:43 to go in the second period. Guentzel scored his second point of the game by batting in a feed from Nikita Kucherov 21 seconds into the third period.
Luke Glendening extended the Lightning’s lead to 4-1 with 6:41 to go with a quick goal off the rush. Anthony Cirelli scored an empty-net goal with five minutes to go to continue pile things on. Matthew Tkachuk hit Jake Guentzel away from the play during the empty-net goal and was issued a five-minute penalty for doing so.
Here are three takeaways from Florida’s Game 3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning:
Tampa defense much cleaner in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy
In Game 1, the Panthers’ clear advantage was their ability to get to the front of the net, tip pucks in and set up screens in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy to generate offense. That was not happening for them in Game 3.
Tampa Bay looked much more like its own championship-caliber form in Game 3. It held Florida’s attack to the perimeter and it set up a lot of easy saves for Vasilevskiy. After an uncharacteristic six goals against start to the series, he looks more like himself after allowing just two goals in Games 2 and 3.
Multiple missed assignments dug Florida into hole
The Panthers made a few uncharacteristic mistakes that caused them to fall behind in Game 3.
A poorly timed line change allowed Paul to break in on his 2-on-1 rush to score the goal that gave Tampa the lead. The Panthers were late getting back into their own zone again when Yanni Gourde was breaking the puck in and Glendening was left wide open for his goal that made it 4-1.
Panthers continue to stay strong against Lighting power play
One of the lone bright spots from Florida’s lopsided loss to Tampa Bay was that its penalty kill was once again spotless. And it was leaned on pretty heavily.
Florida went 5-for-6 on the penalty kill, with Cirelli’s empty-net goal being the only power play goal the Panthers have allowed in the past two games. It’s been a similar story all series — the Panthers have been aggressive at eating up passing lanes and holding Tampa Bay’s power play to the perimeter.
It is an area that the Panthers have continued to excel at all series.