A battle of Atlantic Division powerhouses took place on Monday night in Sunrise.
Both the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning came into the game playing some of their best hockey of the season, but it was the home team that came out on top.
Led by a pair of goals from Sasha Barkov and a stellar game in goal by Sergei Bobrovsky, Florida handed the Lightning their first loss in nine games and ended their 10-game point streak, defeating Tampa Bay 2-1 at Amerant Bank Arena.
For much of the game, the story was the goaltending.
Both Sergei Bobrovsky for Florida and Andrei Vasilevskiy for Tampa stood tall in goal, combining to stop the game’s first 30 shots on goal.
It wasn’t until just before the midway point of the second period that someone finally put a puck past a goalie, and it was Panthers captain Sasha Barkov who got the job done.
Holding the puck just in front of Florida’s bench, Barkov spun away from Brayden Point and toward the middle of the ice, clearing himself some time and space.
After carrying the puck between the circles, Barkov wired a laser of a wrist shot over the blocker of Vasilevskiy and into the top of the net to give Florida a 1-0 lead.
About six minutes later and with Florida on their second power play of the game, the puck found its way to Barkov’s stick again, in almost the same exact spot that he’d just scored a goal.
This time, however, Barkov went glove side on Vasilevskiy, but the result was the same, and just like that Florida was up by two on Tampa.
After failing to score on a four-minute power play late in the second, the Lightning were able to get one past Bobrovsky early in the third.
Brayden Point jumped on his own rebound and sent a backhand past Bobrovsky’s blocker to cut Florida’s lead in half.
Bob came up with his biggest save of the game late in the third period, stoning Ryan McDonagh on a shorthanded breakaway.
That would be the best chance the Lightning would get, as Florida went on to earn their fourth straight victory.
On to Columbus.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Barkov’s goals were his first since Feb. 8 against Ottawa, Florida’s final game before the 4 Nations break.
Aaron Ekblad extended his point streak to four games with an assist on one of Barkov’s goals, now with five points during the run and 11 points over his past 13 games overall.
Mackie Samoskevich picked up a primary assist on Barkov’s second goal, his fourth point over his past six games.
Florida went a perfect 7-for-7 on the penalty kill against Tampa’s fourth-ranked power play. The Lightning also boast the NHL’s best road power play, adding to the impressive kills by the Cats.
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