SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers had never beaten rival Tampa Bay Lightning like they were beating them Thursday and still the crowd at Sunrise wasn’t content.
Aleksander Barkov’s short-handed goal with 7:29 left was the Panthers’ ninth — their most in a single game all season — and they were coming easily. A chant started quietly and then grew louder until it was cascading from all corners of FLA Live Arena.
“We want 10!” the crowd chanted for most of the final seven minutes Thursday. “We want 10! We want 10!”
They never did get it, instead settling for a mere 9-3 rout of the defending Stanley Cup champions, but the Panthers, after struggling through most of December, were back to playing the joy-inspiring hockey they rode to the best record in the league for the first quarter of the season.
Florida, which had lost three in a row and four of five before rising COVID-19 cases temporarily halted the season Dec. 21, has now won two in a row — both against some of the best teams in the NHL — since their season resumed Wednesday.
Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar called the Panthers’ 13-day break between games — the Panthers last played Dec. 16 before they beat the New York Rangers on Wednesday — a chance for “a little reset” after they hit their roughest stretch of the season to start the month. A spate of injuries had become to much to overcome, and they needed to get healthy and get right.
They might just be back on track.
After pulling off a third-period comeback to beat the Rangers on Wednesday in their first game Dec. 16, Florida stormed out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and held off a handful of Lightning pushes to move back into second place in the Atlantic Division. The Panthers (20-7-4) are now just two points back of Tampa Bay (21-7-4) with one fewer game played than their in-state rival.
Florida hadn’t won two in a row since Dec. 4, when it finished a three-game winning streak with a victory against the St. Louis Blues, then went on the road for a disheartening trip through the Western Conference. The Panthers lost to the Blues and Colorado Avalanche, and barely sneaked past the league-worst Arizona Coyotes. Even when it returned home, Florida lost by nine combined goals to the Ottawa Senators and Los Angeles Kings.
For the Kings game, the Panthers had seven players sidelined by the coronavirus, plus Barkov and defenseman Gustav Forsling out with injuries. They were not the same team they had been when they won 10 of their first 11 games to because most of those players who helped make Florida the best team in the league weren’t even on the ice.
For the last two days, the Panthers have been their old selves. It started Wednesday when they returned to their “Comeback Cats” moniker by erasing a pair of one-goal deficits to beat New York. On Thursday, they faced the Lightning for the 20th time in 2021 — including preseason and postseason games — and dominated their short-handed rival from start to finish.
With both of its top two goalies in COVID-19 protocol, Tampa Bay turned to Maxime Lagace to start his second straight game. The Lightning goaltender made a solid season debut Tuesday when he notched 27 saves to beat the Montreal Canadiens in Tampa, but this was still only the 16th start of his career and only his fourth since he made 14 for the expansion Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017-18 NHL season, and this one wasn’t against the last-place Canadiens.
Even after it lost four of five going into the coronavirus pause, Florida went into the break with the most prolific offense in the Eastern Conference, averaging more than 3.50 goals per game by pairing its top-end, All-Star talent with one of the deepest rosters in the league.
It put all those strengths on display Thursday. Winger Anthony Duclair scored his team-leading 11th goal in the first three minutes when he got a breakaway and dangled his way past Lagace, then All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau matched him by scoring his 11th on a power play 9:12 later, knocking home a rebound after Barkov hit a shot off the crossbar. Less than three minutes later, the Panthers pushed their lead to 3-0 when winger Frank Vatrano, who was a healthy scratch Wednesday, scored on a rebound after his own shot hit off the post.
Both times Tampa Bay scored to cut Florida’s lead to two goals, the Panthers answered to retake a substantial lead. Huberdeau led the way with five points and 16 of the 18 skaters to suit up tallied at least one.
Despite its 3-1 lead, Florida got outshot 19-10 in the first period. For the rest of the game, the Panthers outshot the Lightning, 27-23, to more than seven goals for the first time all season. Fourth-line center Eetu Luostarinen, third-line center Anton Lundell and winger Maxim Mamin, playing in only his 13th game this season, all scored in the second to put Florida in control 6-1. In the third, Duclair retook the team lead with his 12th goal of the season, and star defenseman Aaron Ekblad and Barkov put the final touches on the blowout.
