Jack Finley’s first NHL goal was the game-winner as the Tampa Bay Lightning rebounded from a blowout loss two days prior with a 3-1 win over the rival Florida Panthers on Saturday in Sunrise, Fla.
Early in the third period, Florida defenseman Donovan Sebrango fell down, allowing the 23-year-old Finley to skate in alone and backhand in his first tally in seven career games past Sergei Bobrovsky (17 saves) for a 2-1 edge at the 4:09 mark.
Emil Lilleberg and Zemgus Girgensons scored goals for Tampa Bay, which is 8-2-0 in its past 10 matches. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves.
Tampa Bay played without forward Brandon Hagel, who was injured in Wednesday’s 7-3 trampling delivered by the visiting New York Rangers.
Florida’s Brad Marchand extended his point streak to his last 10 games with a goal, but the home side went 1-for-5 on the power play and missed on a four-minute one in the third period.
In what was anticipated to be a hard-hitting, feisty matchup, Florida’s Sam Bennett, last June’s Conn Smythe winner, delivered an elbow to Nikita Kucherov for the game’s first power play, which the Panthers killed behind strong network by Bobrovsky.
However, Kucherov got his revenge at 12:19 when he slipped a pass to Lilleberg, and the Norwegian defenseman fired past Bobrovsky for a 1-0 lead.
The Lightning held the territorial advantage over their Atlantic Division rival for most of the first period’s remainder, but the first scrums broke out at the buzzer right in front of Bobrovsky as the edginess intensified.
In the second period on the Panthers’ second man advantage after Girgensons went off for charging, Marchand evened it just five seconds later after he backhanded in his 12th goal in 17 games at 11:31 after a faceoff.
The physical match remained tied, and the Lightning held a 17-13 shot advantage as scoring chances were tough to come by through 40 minutes.
Tampa Bay killed off a double-minor penalty on Erik Cernak, and Florida answered with its own kill after Bennett’s penalty but could not find the equalizer before Girgensons potted the empty-netter.
