Florida Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk returned to action with two goals and an assist, and the Stanley Cup champs swiped home-ice advantage by thumping the host Tampa Bay Lightning 6-2 to start their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series on Tuesday night.
Sidelined in the season’s final 25 games with a lower-body injury, Tkachuk tallied on two power plays in Game 1 of the Battle of Florida.
“That’s what you miss,” Tkachuk said, according to the Miami Herald. “You miss competing. You miss the fans, the energy, the emotion, the battles with the other team, the chirps on your own bench. It’s just so much stuff that you miss.”
Defenseman Nate Schmidt added a goal on the man advantage and another at even strength as Florida went 3-for-3 on the power play.
Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart had a goal and an assist apiece for the Panthers, and Aleksander Barkov posted two helpers. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made 20 saves.
Bennett said of opposing the Lightning, “(The hate) is there. It’s from a lot of playoff series. It’s a great rivalry and what makes hockey fun.”
Tampa Bay’s Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point scored, but star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy surrendered six goals on just 16 shots.
“It’s definitely a salty feeling in here,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said of the Lightning’s postgame mood. “We didn’t have a great start to the series like we talked about, but … it’s a series here.”
Game 2 is Thursday night in Tampa.
The Panthers quieted the frenzied home crowd when Mackie Samoskevich, playing in his first playoff game, saucered a waist-high pass that Bennett chipped in at 3:44 of the first period.
However, with four seconds left in the power play following Tkachuk’s roughing penalty, Guentzel, who led the NHL with 17 man-advantage goals, knotted it at 12:21 of the opening period.
Inside the final minute before the first intermission, Florida retook the lead on Reinhart’s redirection of a shot sent wide by Dmitry Kulikov.
Florida went up 3-1 at 4:41 of the second on a goal by Schmidt, who swooped in for a tally after Eetu Luostarinen battled at the top of the crease with Vasilevskiy. Lightning coach Jon Cooper challenged for goalie interference, but the marker stood.
The failed challenge burned the home side, as Reinhart found Tkachuk wide open in the low slot on the ensuing power play. Tkachuk deked Vasilevskiy twice and fired a shot through his pads for a 4-1 edge just 14 seconds after Schmidt’s tally.
With Vasilevskiy shielded by traffic, Tkachuk struck again for a 5-1 lead when his shot caromed off a skate and slid in at 9:44 of the middle frame, but Point cut it to 5-2 less than four minutes later.
Schmidt’s power-play tally at 5:09 of the third gave Florida its second four-goal lead to lock down a 1-0 series lead.
–Field Level Media
