NHL Roundup: Panthers beat Lightning, Hurricanes victorious
TAMPA, Fla. — Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves, Matthew Tkachuk scored twice and the Florida Panthers beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 on Thursday night to take a 3-0 lead in the firstround playoff series.
Brandon Montour, Sam Reinhart and Steven Lorentz also scored for the Panthers, who will seek a sweep Saturday night in Tampa.
Tkachuk had a first-period goal and added an empty-netter with 32 seconds left.
“We’re playing some good hockey right now, and we’re happy with where we’re at right now in the series,” Tkachuk said. “The fourth (win) is the hardest, everyone says that, so we have to come out absolutely ready to go on Saturday.”
Steven Stamkos, Tyler Motte and Nicholas Paul scored for Tampa Bay, with Paul cutting it to 4-3 with 5:10 left. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots.
“It’s tough when you get in situations like this what you’re going to say right at this moment (to the team),” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “But the talk is you want the believers to show up to the rink tomorrow. And if you’re not going to believe, then you don’t have to come. Well see how many guys show up tomorrow.”
Montour gave Florida a 3-2 lead on a blue-line shot with 3:30 left in the second, with Lorentz making it a two-goal game from the slot at 9:41 of the third.
After withstanding several minutes of sustained pressure at the defensive end, Florida tied it at 2 on Reinhart’s goal at 9:58 of the second.
Stamkos scored 44 seconds into the second before Motte put Tampa Bay up 2-1 just 2:12 later. The 34-year-old Stamkos is the ninth player 34 or older to score in each of his team’s first three playoff games, and the first since San Jose’s Patrick Marleau in 2014.
“I thought we played probably the best 10 minutes of the series right there,” Stamkos said of the first half of the second. “We were controlling the play. Then, it’s just little mistakes that are made are costing us.”
Stamkos also had six hits and made a nifty block on Vladimir Tarasenko’s empty-net try.
Thirty-two seconds after the Panthers killed off Tampa Bay’s second power play, Tkachuk opened the scoring midway through the first.
Tkachuk became the 12th U.S.born player to have 20 postseason goals in 50 or games or fewer. The list also includes his father, Keith Tkachuk.
Tampa Bay appeared to tie it with 18 seconds left in the first, but Anthony Cirelli’s goal on the Lightning’s third power play was disallowed following a video review found the play was offside.
The Lightning, with the NHL’s top regular-season power play, went 0 for 4. Florida did not have a power play.
I thought the big story will be penalty killing,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s just such a dominant, highly skilled, power play.”
With Florida forwards Sam
Bennett (shot off hand) and Ryan Lomberg (illness) out, right wing Kyle Okposo, acquired from Buffalo in March, was inserted into the lineup and had an assist in his first playoff game since 2016.
“It’s just a special feeling,” Okposo said.
BRENT BURNS, DMITRY
ORLOV HELP HURRICANES TAKE
3-0 SERIES LEAD
NEW YORK (AP) — The Carolina Hurricanes didn’t think they played their best in Game 3 against the New York Islanders. They did enough to move a win away from advancing to the second round.
Defensemen Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov got the Hurricanes off to a fast start and they held on to beat the Islanders 3-2 on Thursday night for a 3-0 series lead.
Sebastian Aho also scored for the Hurricanes and Andrei Svechnikov had two assists. Frederik Andersen stopped 29 shots. Carolina won for eighth time in nine games at UBS Arena, which opened for the 2021-22 season.
“We didn’t really play our way tonight, it wasn’t there,” Svechnikov said. “But we take the win and run away.”
Brock Nelson and Pierre Engvall scored for the Islanders. They are a loss away from being eliminated by Carolina in the first round for the second straight year.
Ilya Sorokin, getting the start after Semyon Varlamov went in the first two games, was pulled in the second period after giving up three goals on 14 shots. Varlamov came on and stopped all eight shots he faced.
“I thought it was a hard-fought game, there were not many chances on both sides,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “We had a good push in the third. We had our chances and the puck wasn’t bouncing our way.”
Trailing 3-2 in the third period, New York pressed for the tying goal, outshooting Carolina 11-3, but couldn’t get the tying goal.
“We knew it was coming, they were going to give it everything they had,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. ‘That’s exactly what happened but obviously Freddy came up with a couple of huge saves and that’s the difference in the game.”
Andersen made a nice save falling backward on a shot by Alexander Romanov about 6 1/2 minutes in the third period. The puck lay in the paint briefly before the goalie covered it up.
Andersen made another stellar save while sitting on the ice, reaching up to grab a shot by Romanov with 5:48 left. Andersen felt he got clipped by an Islanders player and that’s why he went down on the play.
“One you go down you just try to steal one and see where the puck is,” he said. “You got to see it to have a chance for it to try to come up with something. Those are fun saves.”
Brind’Amour credited the goalie for always being even-keeled regardless of the situation.
“He was very, very sharp,” he said. “Obviously, the difference in the game. That’s kind of his demeanor. You can never really tell with him what kind of game it is.”
The Islanders pulled Varlamov for an extra skater with 1:55 to go, but could not beat Andersen.
“Both teams battled, sometimes you’re just a bounce away.” New York’s Kyle Palmieri said. “We just have to regroup and find a way in Game 4.”
Game 4 is Saturday in New
York.
Trailing 2-0 after one period, the Islanders got on the scoreboard early in the second when Engvall took a pass in front from Anders Lee and fired a shot between Andersen’s legs.
Aho restored the two-goal lead at 7:14 as he got a pass from Svechnikov and fired a shot from the high slot past Sorokin for his second goal of the series. That ended Sorokin’s night.
Nelson brought the Islanders back within one late in the middle period. Ryan Pulock’s shot was deflected off Palmieri in front and Nelson came in and quickly put it past Andersen on the right side with 2:21 to go.