Facing an opponent that elected to rest several of its regulars, the Lightning took care of business in their regular season home finale with a decisive 5-1 victory.
The Lightning broke the game open with three first-period goals. Yanni Gourde delivered a backhand cross-ice pass from the neutral zone to Brayden Point, who skated unguarded into the offensive zone and zipped a wrist shot past Vitek Vanecek at 1:32. On the shift after finishing a successful penalty kill, the Lightning converted off a three-on-two rush. Point set up Conor Geekie for a right-circle one-timer that beat Vanecek on the short side at 15:25. With under two minutes left, they added a third goal. Just as a Tampa Bay penalty kill began, Seth Jones lost an edge deep in the Florida end and fell. Anthony Cirelli collected the puck and passed to Jake Guentzel at the top of the crease for an uncontested shot. Guentzel tallied his 41st goal of the season, a new career high.
The teams traded goals early in the second. An extended offensive-zone shift from the Lightning yielded a good look for Gourde in the slot. Instead of shooting, he passed to Nikita Kucherov at the bottom of the right circle. Kucherov put the puck into an open side of the net. Less than a minute later, the Panthers tallied a goal on a two-on-one rush. Brad Marchand, playing his 1,100th NHL regular season game, wristed a right-circle shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy on the short side.
The rest of the second period flew by. The frame’s final faceoff came with 9:38 remaining. The teams played whistle-free hockey straight through until the intermission.
In the third period, the Lightning scored a fifth goal during a five-on-three. Darren Raddysh drilled a one-timer from the left circle into the net at 11:22.
One of those infractions that led to the five-on-three was a match penalty to Jesse Puljujarvi, who delivered a hit to the head of Mitchell Chaffee. Unfortunately, Chaffee didn’t take another shift for the rest of the game.
It was a solid win to close out the home portion of the regular season. After facing the Rangers on Thursday in Game #82, the Lightning will return home to get ready for Game One of their first-round series against a much different-looking Florida lineup.
Lightning Radio Three Stars of the Game (as selected by Phil Esposito):
- Brayden Point — Lightning. Goal and two assists.
- Nikita Kucherov — Lightning. Goal and assist.
- Andrei Vasilevskiy — Lightning. 23 saves.
