tbl-Lightning Drop Final Preseason Home Game To Panthers, 5 3

Summary

The Tampa Bay Lightning rallied back twice, but couldn’t pull out the win as the Florida Panthers picked up the 5-3 win in the Bolts final home preseason game. Jensen Haskins scored twice while Conor Geekie picked up his second goal of the preseason in the loss. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 20 of 24 shots in the loss. The first period was a solid one for the Bolts. They didn’t have many shots on goal as Florida blocked six of their attempts, but most of the early play was in the Florida zone. Tampa Bay was solid in breaking up outlet passes and controlling the neutral zone. The Panthers couldn’t really get their forecheck going until late in the period. Nikita Kucherov had a couple of solid shots right off of face-off wins by Brayden Point, but Cooper Black made the stops and didn’t allow rebounds. Of the players fighting for a spot, Sam O’Reilly was the most noticable. He is a puck hound. If the Lightning didn’t have the puck, he was on it in a second. Vasilevskiy wasn’t tested early, but he did make a few nice stops before old friend Boko Imama deflected a point shot past him with 15 seconds left in the period. One would think an early power play would benefit the home team, but the Bolts struggled to enter the zone and it led to some solid play for the Panthers early in the period. They doubled their lead on a bit of a flukey goal. The puck went behind the Lightning net and Vasilevsky, who had come out to play it, just let it go by. Kai Schwindt possessed it and basically threw it at the goaltender’s feet and Vasilevsky basically kicked it in. Down two goals is right where the Lightning wanted to be apparently. Jensen Harkins kept the streak of new guys scoring as he took a nice backhand feed from Ilya Mikheyev, made a quick move and then sniped it past Black. In the backhalf of the period, the Kid Line struck. Benjamin Rautiainen made a nice pass off the boards that sprung Sam O’Reilly and Conor Geekie on a two-on-none. O’Reilly drove to the net before dishing a no look pass to Geekie who buried it for his second goal of the preseason. The Lightning’s preseason power play outage continued despite a lengthy two-skater advantage. There were plenty of shots directed at the net, but Cooper Black was there to knock them away. The fourth line followed up the power play with some more aggressive zone time, but the period would end tied at two (and with Nikita Kucherov in the penalty box). Florida started the period on the power play and with a new goaltender as Kirill Gerasimyuk entered the game. The Lightning killed off the penalty, but the Panthers took the league when Hunter St. Martin gained an advantage on Emil Lilleberg in the slot and redirected a puck past Vasilevsky. The lead didn’t last long as Jansen Harkins pounced on a rebound for his second of the night. The tie game lasted an even shorter amount of time as Cole Reinhardt found some open ice in the slot after he poked the puck off of Ryan McDonagh’s stick and wristed one past Vasilevsky to put the Panthers back up 4-3. The teams would play four aside after Jakob Pelletier knocked John Beecher into Vasilevsky. Pelletier went for roughing and Beecher for goaltender interference. Coach Jon Cooper pulled Vasilevskiy for the five-on-four advantage with about six minutes left to go in the game. The Bolts got their chances, but couldn’t slip one past the netminder. A more traditional six-on-five in the last 90 seconds led to a shot off the post by Jake Guentzel. Florida would eventually break out of the zone and seal it with an empty net goal from Sandis Vilmanis. The Goals: Boko Imama (Donovan Sebrango, Sam Lafferty) 1-0 Panthers Kai Schwindt (Cole Reinhardt, Mikulas Hovorka) 2-0 Panthers Jensen Harkins (Ilya Mikheyev, J.J. Moser) 2-1 Panthers Conor Geekie (Sam O’Reilly, Benjamin Rautiainen) 2-2 Hunter St. Martin (Alexander Petrovic, Kai Schwindt) 3-2 Panthers Jensen Harkins (Ryan McDonagh, Jakob Pelletier) 3-3 Cole Reinhardt (unassisted) 4-2 Panthers Sandis Vilmanis (Uvis Balinskis) Empty Net, 5-3 Panthers Raw Charge Player of the Game: Sam O’Reilly – 14:25 ice time, 1 assist, 8/15 face-offs, 7 hits The Numbers: Box Score Time On Ice Natural Stat Trick