“I guess you get that with the rivalry that's built up over these two teams in the past six, seven years.”
Florida opened the scoring while shorthanded on a mixup in the Lightning defensive zone, but Tampa Bay’s power play kept its preseason run going to tie the game late in the first period.
Brayden Point found the puck in the right corner and dished to Jake Guentzel at the left faceoff dot. Guentzel passed to Kucherov in the high slot, who sent it right back to Guentzel for the game-tying goal at the left post with 40.6 seconds left in the first period.
The power play was operating without usual point-man Victor Hedman on Thursday but finished with a pair of goals. Tampa Bay has now scored on the power play in all but one of its preseason games.
“You can only do so much against your own team, especially when everybody knows what's coming at times,” Cooper said of the power play. “That’s why it’s good to get reps like this. I’ve always liked our power play, but it was a good night to get reps on that.”
A Seth Jones point shot regained Florida’s lead less than a minute into the second period on their own power play, as the middle frame went on to be another physical showing.
The Lightning got the final laugh of the period on Point’s game-tying goal with 1:05 remaining.
Kucherov and Guentzel entered the zone on another 2-on-1 rush, where Kucherov’s pass deflected off Guentzel’s skate to a trailing Point. With Florida netminder Daniil Tarasov facing the endboards, Point knotted the score.
Tampa Bay amassed 48 penalty minutes in the second period alone, while the Panthers had 34.
“That’s just the way hockey is,” Raddysh said of the team supporting one another. “Every team is like that, and everyone has each other's backs. When one guy goes in, everyone's going in, so it's good for the team.”
Three goals in the third period sealed the win for Tampa Bay.
Guentzel’s third point of the game gave the Lightning their first lead. The forward entered the Florida zone on the power play, rushed down the right boards and sent a snap shot inside the left post to make it 3-2 Lightning just 65 seconds into the third period.
“It was obviously tough to get a little bit of flow in that game,” Anthony Cirelli said, “but I thought Pointer’s line was buzzing like they are and saw a couple plays that they made for goals.”
Tampa Bay didn’t rest on the advantage—after Florida forward Jonah Gadjovich caught Dominic James with a knee-on-knee hit in the Bolts’ defensive zone, James still found a way to feed the puck to Conor Geekie.
Geekie rushed the ice before leaving Florida defenseman Seth Jones behind with a spin move and scoring on a shot into the top left half of the net 6:27 into the third. He scored just in time to join the action taking place in the defensive zone behind him.
