Lightning respond against Panthers for 1st win of series in Game 3 

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Jake Guentzel had a goal and two assists for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 5-1 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday.

Florida leads the best-of-7 series 2-1. Game 4 will be in Sunrise on Monday (7 p.m. ET; FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS, ESPN, SN, TVAS).

"It is a huge win for our team, gives us some confidence and some life in this series," Guentzel said. "It's a good step in the right direction for all of us. But it's only one game. We have to be ready to go for the next one."

Brayden Point, Nick Paul, Luke Glendening and Anthony Cirelli scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves for the Lightning, the No. 2 seed from the Atlantic Division. Nikita Kucherov had three assists.

Matthew Tkachuk scored for the Panthers, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic. Sergei Bobrovsky made 17 saves.

"I liked our start, liked the pace of our game," Florida coach Paul Maurice said. "I thought we stopped moving the puck as well as we can. … I don't think we were great, but offensively, we probably generated more [Saturday] than in either of the other two games. We have lots of room to get better; I am sure they do too. This is going to be a grinder straight through."

Tkachuk scored his third goal of the series to make it 1-0 at 2:43 of the first period.

After the Lightning turned over the puck in their own zone, Sam Bennett missed on his shot attempt, but the puck went across the crease to Tkachuk, who swept it in.

"We will learn a lot from this game," said Florida captain Aleksander Barkov, who was questionable to play because of an undisclosed injury. "We had a great start, did the right things. But they are a great team, played really well and won the game. All we can take from this is learn."

Point tied the game 1-1 at 17:15 when Guenztel's shot deflected off of him and went past Bobrovsky.

Paul's wrist shot from the right circle clipped Bobrovsky's leg and went in for a 2-1 lead at 13:17 of the second period.

"We're just playing good hockey," Paul said. "When you are moving north, getting pucks to the net, you're building momentum."

It was the Lightning's first lead of the series.

"Getting the lead is huge," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "The first few minutes, we're down 1-0 and the building is buzzing. I think the mental strength of our team is tying their heads around that, keep going, and eventually tie it. Then we pierced that bubble, finally had the lead."

Guentzel's goal 21 seconds into the third made it 3-1 with the teams skating at 4-on-4. Kucherov made a backhanded pass from the end boards to a waiting Guentzel in front of the net.

It was Guentzel's 40th goal in 72 NHL postseason games.

"Best time to play, playoffs," Guentzel said. "There's really nothing better than Stanley Cup playoffs and being able to play in this. So you can't take it for granted. If you don't get up for these games, there's something wrong with you. It's just the best time of the year to play."

Glendening scored on a 2-on-1 off a pass from Yanni Gourde to give the Lightning a 4-1 lead at 14:19 of the third.

Cirelli scored an empty-net goal with Bobrovsky pulled for an extra skater for the 5-1 final at 15:00.

The Lightning had lost the first two games of the series at home, being outscored 8-2 in the process.

"You would have never known sitting in the locker room after Game 2 that we were down 0-2," Cooper said. "And so, riding into this game, it wasn’t going to guarantee the result, but I knew damn well how the effort was going to be. And they delivered."

NOTES: Kucherov is the seventh player in NHL history to have at least 30 multi-assist games in the playoffs. Wayne Gretzky leads all players with 72 such games. It was Kucherov's 11th three-assist playoff game in the postseason to tie Paul Coffey and Doug Gilmour for third-most all time. Gretzky did so 28 times, and Mark Messier 12. ... Tkachuk scored his 20th playoff goal with the Panthers. He ranks behind Carter Verhaeghe (26) and Sam Reinhart (22) for most playoff goals in team history. ... Florida lost for just the fourth time in 25 playoff games since 2023 when scoring first.