Lightning Defeat Panthers, Securing Second in Atlantic Division

The Tampa Bay Lightning (47, 26, 8) cruised past in-state rival, the Florida Panthers (47, 31, 4) in a 5-1 victory on Tuesday.

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished first in the Atlantic Division, followed by the Lightning in second and the Panthers in Third.

Lightning Brings the Heat

Tampa Bay dominated in the first period with three goals in the Lightning’s final home game of the regular season.

Brayden Point opened up the scoring at 1:32 into the game. Later in the first period, Conor Geekie scored off a pass from Point. Jake Guentzel found the back of the Panthers’ net with a short-handed goal at 18:09, giving Tampa a 3-0 lead.

https://twitter.com/TBLightning/status/1912294220494233865

Nikita Kucherov scored at 4:42 in the second period, making it 4-0 before the Panthers got on the board. Yanni Gourde faked a shot and found Kucherov open for a shot into an open net. Brad Marchand got the Panthers on the scoreboard at 5:36.

The Lightning responded in the third period with a power-play goal from Darren Raddysh off a pass from Kucherov, finishing the game 5-1.

Game Notes

Florida forward Jesse Puljujarvi had a late third period match penalty for a check to the head of Tampa forward Mitchell Chaffee.

Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 22 saves.

This was Marchand’s second goal with Florida since joining the team from the Boston Bruins on March 7.

Kucherov leads the NHL with 121 points (37 goals, 84 assists). Tampa’s Victor Hedman reached 50 assists for the fourth time in his career.

Stanley Cup Playoffs

Florida and Tampa will play each other in the Eastern Conference first round playoff game for the second straight season. The Lightning will get the home ice advantage after ranking higher in the division.

This marks the third time in the last four seasons that the two teams have played each other in the postseason. In seasons prior, the team that won the series reached the Stanley Cup Finals.