Two disallowed goals leave Florida on short end of hard-fought game
The Panthers/Lightning season series is now tied 2-2 after Tampa Bay won at home Sunday. Panthers coach Joel Quenneville disagreed with the ruling on one of two overturned Florida goals.
If the Tampa Bay Lightning is the best team in the NHL — and there is strong evidence to suggest this — then the Florida Panthers are not far behind.
The Lightning, the reigning Stanley Cup champion and the league leader with 48 points so far this season, beat the visiting Panthers 5-3 on Sunday afternoon. The teams have split the first four games against each other this season.
Florida (44 points) had two goals disallowed in Sunday’s game. The first was overturned on video review after MacKenzie Weegar was ruled offside. The second opportunity came on an Anthony Duclair rush, and the puck, which was underneath
Lightning goalie Curtis McElhinney, was not clearly over the line, according to the officials.
Panthers coach Joel Quenneville disagreed with the second ruling.
“I saw a couple of different angles,” he said. “Just using common sense, the area where the puck appears later was vacant, and then the next picture was a puck that you could argue was still over the line.
“It’s not conclusive but … common sense, it has to be in the net.”
The Panthers got goals from Carter Verhaeghe, Gustav Forsling and Patric Hornqvist, and Aleksander Barkov added a pair of assists in a game that was tied three times.
But the Panthers’ defense, which entered the game on a streak of 14 consecutive penalty kills, allowed a late power-play goal by Tyler Johnson with 9:04 left in the third, and that was the difference on the scoreboard.
The Panthers had plenty of opportunities to tie the game in the last 4:27, playing with an extra attacker for virtually all of that time.
First, a roughing penalty on Tampa Bay’s Ross Colton gave the Panthers a power play. But the Panthers, who went 2 for 5 on their power play with goals by Forsling and Hornqvist, couldn’t convert this time.
Once the penalty expired, the Panthers pulled goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for an extra attacker. But the Lightning’s defense held up,with Brayden Point getting an emptynet goal with 15 seconds left to ice the game.
Bobrovsky, after winning six consecutive games, has lost two in a row. He made 19 saves.
McElhinney made 29 saves — including stoning Alex Wennberg on a breakaway — to earn the win. The Panthers had beaten him, 6-4, the last time McElhinney had faced Florida, on Feb. 15.
Florida opened the scoring with 3:28 gone in the first period. Barkov stole the puck and fed Verhaeghe, who faked forehand and scored on a backhander toward the open right side of the net.
“I saw some space, and Barky made an awesome pass,” Verhaeghe said. “I didn’t have a shot [at first], so I pulled [the puck back].”
Tampa tied the score just 32 seconds later. Bobrovsky stopped Barclay Goodrow’s shot, but Yanni Gourde pounced on the juicy rebound.
Florida appeared to tie the score 2-2 on a onehanded rebound goal by Frank Vatrano with 5:03 left in the second. However, Tampa Bay challenged the goal and won on video review as Weegar was ruled offside.
“[The offside] was pretty clear,” Panthers defenseman Keith Yandle said.
Undeterred, the Panthers this time actually did tie the score 2-2 with 1:36 left in the second as Forsling shot between the legs of teammate Noel Acciari, who was looking for a deflection but settled for blocking McElhinney’s vision.
The Panthers nearly took the lead on Duclair’s rush with 18:03 left in the third.
Tampa Bay took a 3-2 lead as Colton tried a wraparound shot, and Mathieu Joseph cleaned up the rebound.
The Panthers tied the score 3-3 when Yandle’s shot was deflected in by Hornqvist.
Tampa took its final lead after Aaron Ekblad was whistled for highsticking Steven Stamkos. Gourde then made a perfect pass to Johnson for a tap-in power-play goal and a 4-3 lead with 9:04 left in the third.
Still, Verhaeghe, who won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning last year, said the difference between his old team and his new one isn’t much.
“Just a couple of bounces,” Verhaeghe said. “I like how we battled back. [The Lightning] are a good team.
It’s going to be a battle with them all year.
“No one is backing down.”
THIS AND THAT
Weegar had his career-best
● seven-game point streak snapped. That streak, which included one goal and eight assists, tied Yandle for the longest in franchise history by a defenseman.
The Panthers failed to
●
take advantage of two breaks. First, Lightning starting goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy — who has won 11 straight games — was rested. Secondly, Lightning first-pair defenseman Ryan McDonagh played just 6:38 because of injury. He averages nearly 23 minutes per game, second most on the team.