Erik Cernak scored his first goal, Nikita Kucherov stretched his point streak to 10 games, and the Tampa Bay Lightning headed off to the Winter Olympics break by earning their 10th straight home win, 6-1 over the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
Brandon Hagel, Zemgus Girgensons, Pontus Holmberg and Oliver Bjorkstrand scored at even strength and Jake Guentzel added a power-play goal. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 shots in the win.
The Lightning won three of the four matches in the season series and moved to 19-1-1 in their past 21 matches overall.
On the second half of back-to-back contests, the Panthers got a goal from Mackie Samoskevich. Goalie Daniil Tarasov stopped 20 shots but left with an injury in the third period. Sergei Bobrovsky had two saves.
The feisty match featured 167 penalty minutes.
Just over two minutes into the final regular-season matchup between the Atlantic Division rivals, Victor Hedman flipped a seemingly harmless shot toward Tarasov that Hagel clipped for a 1-0 lead.
The home side doubled the lead when Holmberg kept the puck alive out front, and Girgensons, who scored just two goals last season, backhanded in his seventh marker at 14:08.
The Panthers had a five-on-three advantage after Girgensons’ goal with over four minutes left, but the Lightning were able to kill it off. The two teams then fought near the final minute in which Florida held a wasted 19-7 shot advantage.
After Matthew Tkachuk took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at the end of the first period, the Lightning cashed in for a 3-0 advantage on their first power play. Guentzel, who provided the winning goal in the past two victories by the club, hit the net just 1:14 into the second.
Cernak rounded out the period’s scoring by finding the twine for the first time this season on his team’s 18th shot at 17:50.
Less than five minutes into the third, Tkachuk and Hagel brawled, while Gustav Forsling took down J.J. Moser in a harsh battle as both penalty boxes were stuffed with players. Panthers coach Paul Maurice was also ejected.
Holmberg scored at 6:09, and Tarasov was injured on the play.
Samoskevich’s power-play marker broke up the shutout bid at 9:50, and Bjorkstrand rounded out the scoring.
–Field Level Media
