Panthers erase early deficit but fall in overtime to Lightning to cap 0-2-2 road trip
The momentum swing appeared to be in their favor.
The Florida Panthers scored two goals in 36 seconds midway through the second period to erase an early deficit against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
They played aggressive from that point on.
The end result they wanted still didn’t materialize.
Final score in overtime from Amalie Arena on Saturday: Tampa Bay 3, Florida 2.
Brayden Point scored the game-winning goal on a breakaway midway through the five-minute sudden-death overtime period.
With the overtime loss, the Panthers (10-2-3) went 0-2-2 on this four-game road trip, picking up two of eight possible points. They started the trip with back-to-back regulation losses to the New York Rangers on Monday and New Jersey Devils on Tuesday before falling in a shootout to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.
But even with this four-game slide, Florida still has an NHL-leading 23 points courtesy of the nine-game win streak and 11-game point streak they rattled together to start the season.
“This group competes,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said. “I’m proud of the way they bring it every night. Can we be a little bit smarter at times? Yes, absolutely, and we still have things to work on. We work and we compete. If we weren’t doing that I’d have some concern.”
But ideally, they’d like the points to keep rolling in, too.
And they had their chances.
Jonathan Huberdeau and Eetu Luostarinen scored the Panthers’ goals in the second period that erased their early two-goal deficit.
Huberdeau took a feed from Aleksander Barkov and fired a cross-body wrist shot from the right circle that got past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with 7:01 left in the second period. One shift later, Luostarinen tipped in a long Aaron Ekblad shot to tie the game.
Florida out-shot Tampa Bay 14-9 the rest of the way through regulation. Ekblad and MacKenzie Weegar each had a breakaway opportunity in overtime that Vasilevskiy turned away before Point sealed the game.
“We got the momentum back,” Barkov said. “We played in their zone. We played with the puck. That’s exactly what we want to do. That’s how we need to play all the time, every game.”
Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made 21 saves on 24 shots on goal. Vasilevskiy stopped 26 of 28 shots that came his way.
Pat Maroon and Victor Hedman scored the first two goals for the Lightning (7-3-3), both on wristers on the left side of the net. Maroon scored on the power play with 7:43 left in the first period while camping in front of the net. Hedman made it 2-0 with 10:58 left in the second period with his shot from the left circle before the Panthers had their two-goal flurry in the middle of the period to tie the game.
Eight of Florida’s next nine games are at home, starting with Tuesday’s game against the New York Islanders at FLA Live Arena.
“It’s not the way we wanted it to end,” Luostarinen said. “We wanted to get out of here with two points, but now we have to settle for the one and get back to work.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 9:52 PM.
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