5 takeaways from Panthers Game 1 loss to Lightning

SUNRISE – The Battle of Florida got revived for its 2022 edition on Tuesday night. 

The Panthers played host to the Lightning in Game 1 of round 2. Florida had the upper edge 5-on-5 but the ever deadly Lightning power play made Florida pay, again, tonight in Sunrsie. 

The Lightning took Game 1 by a score of 4-1.

Here’s the takeaways. 

Florida gave Tampa too many chances on the power play

Looking back at Game 1 of last year’s battle of Florida, the Lightning won a close game 5-4. Three of Tampa’s goals in that game came on the power play, with a 75% success rate.

Tonight, the Panthers once again gave the Lightning too many chances on the man advantage, with six opportunities. With so many chances, it was only a matter of time for Tampa to find the back of the net. 

On Tampa’s third power play of the night, Nikita Kucherov walked through the Panthers zone, made Aaron Ekblad bite on a fake to the outside, and froze Sergei Bobrovsky before feeding the puck to a wide open Corey Perry. Perry couldn’t have had an easier chance to score with the empty goal staring him in the face.

Tampa tied the game off the Perry goal.​​ The Lightning would finish the game with three power play goals while only scoring once 5-on-5.

In two straight Game 1’s against Florida, Tampa scored three times on the power play. They are too good up a man to have six chances in a game, they’ll make you pay.

Anthony Duclair gets his first career playoff goal

The Stanley Cup Playoffs have not been an easy place for Panthers forward Anthony Duclair. Entering tonight, he was goalless in 11 career playoff games. 

In Game 6 of the first round against the Capitals, Duclair was a healthy scratch. The Panthers went on to win that game and the series in overtime.

Duclair was back in the lineup for Game 1 against the Lightning, but the night didn’t get off to a good start for Duke. He took a high sticking penalty early in the first period with the game scoreless. Luckily for Duclair, Florida was able to kill off the penalty.

Duclair didn’t let the penalty affect him too much. With 5:59 left in the first, Jonathan Huberdeau sauced a pass from the boards to a streaking Duclair in front of the Lightning goal. Duclair fired the puck past Tampa goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, giving the Panthers a 1-0 lead.

This was Duclair’s first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal and it was a great time for him to get that burden off his back.   

Vasilevskiy slams the door, this could be a goaltending series

Before the series started, some would have said that this matchup called for plenty of goals. 

While the two sides have enough offensive firepower to scare pretty much every opponent in the NHL, the two Russian netminders had something to say about that.

Bobrovsky and Vasilveskiy kept this game close through two periods of play, with the score being 1-1 after 40.

 As the game reached the third period, both goalies had to stand on top of their crease as the shots continued to pile on. 

For Bobrovsky, he was getting peppered with shots when Florida was shorthanded. Eventually enough was enough and the pucks started going in.

On the other side of the ice, Andrei Vasilevskiy continuously prevented Florida’s onslaught of high quality chances go to waste as he turned into a brick wall, stopping everything in his way.

Tonight both goaltenders finished with over 30 saves in the game, and with out them, the score line could have been very different.  Vasilevskiy only gave up one goal on 34 shots, while Bobrovsky saved 32, only conceding one 5-on-5 goal.

Tampa’s goalie showed why he has two Stanley Cups tonight. He’s one of the best in the world and the Panthers are going to have to keep testing him if they want to try and crack the code.

No power play, no fun

It’s like reading the same book twenty times, the power play is not getting any better.

Florida was 0/18 in round one on the power play, tonight Florida was 0/3 on the man advantage, making their postseason record 0/21. 

When the game was tied at 1-1 and when the Panthers were down 2-1, the chances they had on the power play could have changed the game. However, once again, the Panthers could not find twine on the man advantage.

Tampa scored three times tonight on their six chances; Florida will lose the series if they don’t figure out their power play. 

Florida loses another Game 1 

Even with home ice, Florida can’t win their opening playoff games.

Last year they lost Game 1 to Tampa. This year they dropped Game 1 to Washington, also on home ice. 

Tonight was  no different, as the Panthers once again went down 0-1 in a series, at home. The last time Florida won a Game 1 was in 1997, when they beat the New York Rangers. Florida didn’t win a game after that in the series.  

Florida will have to advance to the next round if they want to test their luck again in a Game 1, but until then, they need to be ready for Game 2 on Thursday night.