The Florida Panthers were optimistic yet cautious. They had gotten off to one of the best starts in franchise history and had been steady throughout the first 10 games of the shortened 2021 season while primarily facing teams at the bottom half of the Central Division.
But the defending Stanley Cup champions were coming to town. Thursday, their first of three games in five days against the Tampa Bay Lightning, would serve as the litmus test for where this Panthers team really stands.
“They are doing everything right,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said of the Lightning leading into the game, “and we have to do more than everything right.”
On Thursday, the Panthers did more than everything right.
The offense was humming and got past one of the best goaltenders in the league. The defense stymied a high-potent offense. Sergei Bobrovsky followed up his best performance of the season with another solid game in net.
The end result at the BB&T Center: Panthers 5, Lightning 2.
Frank Vatrano, Alex Wennberg, Aaron Ekblad, Carter Verhaeghe and Brett Connolly scored goals for Florida, which improved to 8-1-2 on the season. Bobrovsky stopped 19 of 21 shots on goal to improve to 5-0-1 on the season. Brayden Point scored a pair of power-play goals for the Lightning, who saw their six-game win streak snapped and dropped to 9-2-1.
A three-goal flurry in the span of 6:22 in the second period gave Florida the lead for good.
It started eight-and-a-half minutes into the frame when Wennberg took a cross-ice pass from Jonathan Huberdeau and sent a snap shot past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead. Wennberg has now scored a goal in three consecutive game. Huberdeau’s assist was the 300th of his NHL career.
Point cut Florida’s lead in half just over two minutes later with the first of his two power-play goals, a wrist shot on a feed from Ondrej Palat.
But the Panthers responded with an Ekblad power-play goal (a one-timer from the left circle on a feed from Keith Yandle) and a wrist shot from Verhaeghe from the right board that went through traffic, bounced off Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak’s skate and landed in the back of the net.
“For us,” Yandle said heading into the series, “it’s a good test. We have to be willing to play — we have three games here — and it’s going to be a tough test, but I think we are up to the challenge.”
They were up to the challenge Thursday.
Round 2 is on Saturday, the final game of Florida’s six-game homestand. They will meet again at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Monday.
