If Steven Stamkos’ time as a founding piece of the Tampa Bay Lightning is destined to end this summer, he did his part Saturday to make it last a little longer.
Stamkos, perhaps the greatest player in franchise history, scored twice in Tampa Bay’s 6-3 victory over the Florida Panthers in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series. The Panthers had a chance to secure the sweep and become the first team to advance, but Stamkos and Co. had other ideas, with a fast start and strong finish for a series-extending victory.
Stamkos was a force from the start, scoring goals in the first and third periods, mixing at various points with Matthew Tkachuk and Vladimir Tarasenko, and generally looking like a guy who wasn’t ready for this chapter in his story. END.
Brandon Hagel also scored twice for the Lightning, with Brayden Point and Nick Paul also adding goals. For Florida, it was Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Reinhart and Oliver-Ekman Larsson. The game saw several momentum shifts, including a Panthers second-period pullback that turned what appeared to be a snoozer early in the evening into another close game in a series that was a little closer than its status 3-1 would not indicate that.
Sergachev blows up Tampa Bay
For a while, it looked like the main story of the game would be the return of Mikhail Sergachev, Tampa Bay’s star defenseman who had broken his leg just 80 days before. The Lightning found themselves in a 3-0 hole in the series in part due to a lack of defensive depth behind Victor Hedman, so Sergachev’s return would have been huge strictly on the ice.
Most important, however, was the obvious lift the rest of the Lightning got thanks to Sergachev’s presence. He had been practicing with the team, but seeing him on the ice for warmups was a legitimate shock, and it was no coincidence that the Lightning had gone on to their best stretch of the playoffs.
Sergachev wasn’t just along for the ride either. He played just 5:48 in the first period and forced his way onto the scoresheet in the second, forcing the Panthers into a four-on-four, joining the rush and setting up Hagel to score his first aim. By the end of the game, he had clocked 17:03 of ice time and he generally looked like his old self – not a player who left the ice on a stretcher on February 7.
Lightning stars fuel first-period explosion
If the Lightning have any chance of doing this, their best players will have to play their best hockey. That hadn’t necessarily been true en masse in the first three games of the series. On Saturday, however, they laid the foundation for Game 5 with a major first-half performance.
Stamkos, in a shocking development, scored a power play goal from the left circle. Hedman was the all-situational beast we know, pushing Hagel to score a short-handed goal. Nikita Kucherov set up Point for his first assist since Game 1.
Three goals, three huge contributions from the stars and three good news for the Lightning. You don’t recover 3-0 deficits with a deep score, even if they got it from Paul as well.
Panthers recover
The Panthers followed that up with a three-goal period — and they did it in a way that could serve as a microcosm of their season as a whole.
We saw a five-on-five domination (a 13-4 shots advantage and a 70 percent expected goal share) that included a Tkachuk-Verhaeghe connection, plus a power play goal from Reinhart. Reinhart scored his third goal of the playoffs by jumping on a loose puck to make it 4-2. The goal was his 60th overall, continuing to cement his season as one of the greatest contract pushes of all time. The three-year deal he signed with the Panthers during the 2021 offseason expires July 1, and he has prepared for a significant increase in his AAV by $6.5 million. He came within a millimeter of number 61 at the start of the third period, on an isolated shot from the top of the circle. You can bet it will hit that mark relatively soon.
Ekman-Larsson scored Florida’s third goal, its first of the playoffs and a good reminder of how good he has been for the Panthers. They were counting on him for major minutes on the blue line early in the regular season, with Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour recovering from summer surgeries, and he delivered. They’re not here – with another chance to advance on Monday – without him.
(Photo: Mark LoMoglio/NHLI via Getty Images)