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Recap: Tampa Bay Lightning 4 – Florida Panthers 1

By Evgueni Nagasawa

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With the first view of their interstate rivals, Florida Panthers were shown the talents of the Tampa Bay Lightning, losing 4-1 to the Eastern Conference Champs. After an exciting games of Nashville and Dallas fans were hoping to see the offense keep their light going but only found the struggles with team that was very close to hoisting the Stanley Cup again.

Al Montoya got the start and played the full game, though he gave up 4 goals on 29 shots, the not so stellar defense was to be blamed. Montoya made some remarkable saves even on the scoring machine that is known as Steven Stamkos.

On the other side of the puck the offense was stagnant and was understandable with the team resting their top line of Jagr, Huberdeau, and Barkov, who were monsters in the game prior. Also Erik Gudbranson and Willie Mitchell did not play this game. Vincent Trotcheck was the lone goal scorer for Florida after officials talked it over and decided it went in (as there is no video review in preseason).

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Coach Gerrard Gallant was not too happy about the defensive side of the game, saying “Not just the defense, the defensive game, The forwards caused a lot of it, too. There were a lot of turnovers and they came right back at us. We weren’t too happy at all, for sure.”

4th line for Florida was definitely the best as Dereck MacKenzie, Shawn Thornton, and Connor Brickley racked up 9 hits. Connor Brickley leading the way with 6 hits and one that lit up Nikita Kutcherov. Brickley has really pushed himself into talks for the last few spots for the Panthers (especially with Grimaldi injured, who could be sidelined for 2 weeks). It will be interesting to see if one of the young players will stay for a couple games at the start of the season or if the team signs both veterans of Havlat and Booth.

Florida Panthers
Florida Panthers /

Florida Panthers

While for the Lightning, Kutcherov struck twice, as well as Eric Condra and Matthew Peca getting one for themselves. Ben Bishop finally started a preseason game and played almost 30 minutes and stopped 18 of 18 shots. Gudlevskis would take over and only allowed one. Lightning were vicious on their fore-check as they produced 13 turnovers compared to the Panthers 7.

Panthers will play the Lightning again on Saturday October 3rd at home, after a trip to Dallas on September 27th.

Panthers make more roster changes: 

Florida Panthers cut down their roster to 31, and send F Jayce Hawryluk to Brandon Wheat Kings (WHL), G Sam Brittain, D Josh Brown, F Corban Knight, D Jonathan Racine, F Kyle Rau, F Logan Shaw have been assigned to Portland Pirates (AHL).

All eyes will be on players earning those last few spots. With David Booth, Martin Havlat trying to get a contract from PTO’s and the young guys such as Connor Brickley, Mike Matheson, and Lawson Crouse will look to push the older players out of town.

Next: Recap: Dallas Stars 2- Florida Panthers 3

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