George Richards, FHN Publisher
Game 1 of the Sunshine Battle or whatever it’s called got off to a rousing start Sunday night as the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay showed last week’s show of aggression was not a show.
These teams, honest to goodness, do not seem to like each other.
This really does look like it’s going to be one whale of a series.
In the first postseason game ever played between Florida’s two NHL teams, Brayden Point scored two goals in the third period — including with just over a minute left — to lead the Lightning to a 5-4 win at a sold out (9,646 capacity) BB&T Center.
The best-of-7 series continues Tuesday night at 8 in Sunrise.
Captain Sasha Barkov, who had a goal and an assist — plus a takedown of Jan Rutta — said the Panthers have already moved on from the Game 1 loss.
“I know it sucks but it happened and now we have to concentrate on the next game,’’ Barkov said. “We had some good momentum during the game. We have to learn to defend a little better but other than that, I liked our effort.”
With the win Sunday, the Lightning took home ice back as its own. The Panthers need to win Tuesday to even things up before the series moves to Tampa and to do that, Florida has to stay out of the penalty box.
The Lightning scored three of its five goals — including the game-tying one from Point — while skating with the man advantage.
”It was a very intense game, there was a lot going on out there,” an extremely hoarse Joel Quenneville said. “The power play was the difference tonight. Five-on-five we were OK, but the goals were there on special teams. … Every shift against that team is so critical. They can make something out of nothing.”
FIRST PERIOD HIGHLIGHTS
The bad blood showed from the start.
After combining for 154 penalty minutes just over a week ago, the two teams got into their first scrum 3:15 into the game.
Florida appeared to get the first goal of the night when ‘Playoff’ Sam Bennett jammed a loose puck past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Only one of the officials immediately waved off the goal, apparently ruling Bennett made contact with the goalie’s pad as he was on the ice and shoved Vasilevskiy into the crease.
It appeared that Bennett was trying to play the puck, which is his right, but alas.
The officials briefly talked it out — but it never went to review.
The Panthers could have challenged it but chose not to.
Since it was called on the ice, Florida now needed video to prove there was no contact — which probably wasn’t going to happen. A lost challenge meant a delay of game penalty.
”It was amazing that they called it off and then it could have been reviewed,” Quenneville said. “From our perspective, it would have been tougher for us to do it than them.”
Tampa Bay took advantage of the ensuing faceoff, driving the ice and making it 1-0 on a shorthanded goal from Blake Coleman after he got in front of Keith Yandle.
The rest of the period belonged to the Panthers — especially Sasha Barkov.
“We started pretty well, we were excited to get going and we got the result we wanted in the first period,” Barkov said. “We kind of stopped playing the same way, took some penalties in the second. We want to play the whole game like the first period.”
The Florida captain played like a man possessed the remainder of the first, not only getting a goal and an assist, but flattening Jan Rutta and putting him on his back like a turtle.
Barkov showed not only tremendous strength but some agility on what was called “roughing” by the officials; with Ratta on top of him, Barkov tried to squirm free but eventually decided just to lift the Tampa defenseman off.
Off one leg (and on skates, mind you), Barkov stood up with Ratta on his back, turned and dropped to the ice. If this was the state high school wrestling tournament, Barkov would have gotten three points for an escape — and had Ratta in line for a pin.
”That’s the playoffs,’’ Barkov said.
This whole scene played out five minutes after Barkov tied the score at 1 on a wicked one-timer off a Jonathan Huberdeau power play pass.
Upon getting out of the box, Barkov slipped a no-look pass to Carter Verhaeghe who buried it off the rush at 16:31 to give Florida its first lead of the night.
SECOND PERIOD HIGHLIGHTS
The Panthers didn’t look like the same team in the second and all the penalties they took certainly did not help.
Florida got slapped with four penalties in the period (although Ryan Lomberg’s roughing was a wash) and the Lightning’s much-improved (since Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos returned, anyway) power play was off and running.
Kucherov ended up scoring on two of the Lightning’s power play chances, both off his famed one-timers from the right circle.
He also pulled into a tie with Alex Ovechkin for most postseason goals (38) since 2014.
With Kucherov outscoring the Panthers 2-0, Florida went into the third down 3-2.
Had it not been for Noel Acciari, it could have been worse. Midway through the period, Bobrovsky was out of the net and it was a wide open shot for Erik Cernak. He fired toward the but the fourth-line center slid into Bobrovsky’s spot and made the save, keeping the score tied at least for the time being.
THIRD PERIOD HIGHLIGHTS
Huberdeau got the Panthers rolling in the third.
Just over a minute in,Huberdeau broke out off a pass from Anthony Duclair — who was boarded by Ryan McDonagh in the early goings — and put a puck right underneath Vasilevskiy’s pad to tie the score at 3.
At least a dozen rubber rats were tossed onto the ice from the crowd leading some on Twitter to wonder whether these were: A) Fans from Tampa trying to get the Panthers a delay of game penalty; or B) fans who had not been to a Panthers game since the Miami Arena days.
It didn’t matter, the ice crew quickly scooped them up and the game rolled on.
And Huberdeau gave us a beaut of a goal.
About three minutes later, Huberdeau got out into the open ice again by picking off a turnover just inside the offensive zone.
Huberdeau again drove the net and got Vasilevskiy to commit; Huberdeau made another spin-o-rama move at the mouth of the goal, perfectly threading a pass along the goal line to Owen Tippett.
With Vasilevskiy on his knees at the far end of the cage, the net was wide open. Tippett did not miss and the Panthers had a 4-3 lead.
It would not last.
At 12:19 of the third, Bennett — one of Florida’s most effective penalty killers — was hit with charging. Point tied it at the 13 minute mark with a slot through some traffic on Tampa Bay’s 33rd shot on goal of the night.
Point ended it with 1:14 left, driving in and beating Bobrovsky.
Florida ended up taking nine penalties — although three were offsetting.
Still, six penalties is too much to be taking when you’re playing a potent team like the Lightning with two of its biggest stars back on the ice.
A total of four goals, three on the power play and one shorthanded, were scored against the Panthers. They need to shore that up.
”Anything can happen,” Barkov said. “We’re going to find a way to get better at some spots in our game. We know 5-on-5 we played well so we’ll get better at that. We’re fine.”
GEORGE’S THREE STARS OF GAME 1
1. Brayden Point, Tampa Bay
2. Jonathan Huberdeau, Florida
3. Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay