Florida Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice watches the game during the second period of Game 3 of the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla. Alie Skowronski [email protected]

It seemed like only a matter of time before the Tampa Bay Lightning would respond in the first-round series with the Florida Panthers.

That turned out to be the case on Saturday.

The Lightning rallied from an early deficit to beat the Panthers 5-1 at Amerant Bank Arena.

Florida still leads the best-of-7 series 2-1, with Game 4 scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday in Sunrise. The road team has won every game in the series so far.

The Panthers opened scoring 2:43 into regulation when Matthew Tkachuk capitalized on a whiffed shot by teammate Sam Bennett to beat Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy from up close.

It was all Tampa Bay from there. Brayden Point tied the game with 2:45 left in the first period, Nick Paul scored the go-ahead goal 13:17 into the second period and Jake Guentzel extended the Lightning’s lead to two goals 21 seconds into the third period. Luke Glendening then made it 4-1 with 5:41 left on a two-on-one with Yanni Gourde before Anthony Cirelli scored on an empty net to seal it.

Nikita Kucherov had three assists, while Ryan McDonough had two.

“We just went flat for a while,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “I liked our start. … We missed connections on a bunch of stuff. There was the drive to make some plays. They didn’t go for us.”

Vasilevskiy was a big part of that. He was stellar after giving up the opening goal, stopping 33 of 34 shots overall that he faced. The Panthers had 71 total shots attempts and 22 high-danger chances.

“We’ve gotta work harder to get there,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “It’s not going to be easy, and it hasn’t been easy, so you’ve just got to work a little little harder and find a way to get to the net and get the get the rebounds.”

Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky gave up four goals on just 21 Tampa Bay shots.

The game got physical and chippy late in the second period and it stayed that way the rest of the way. A total of 45 penalty minutes were assessed, including a misconduct per team (Cirelli for Tampa Bay, Niko Mikkola for Florida) in the third period.

This was a game that Tampa Bay needed if it wanted any chance to make the series interesting.

What comes next — whether the Panthers re-establish control or the Lightning finds a way to even things up — will be telling in how the series shakes out.

“When we play like any playoff game, that’s what happens,” Barkov said. “You just have to live in the moment and handle those moments and move on. From this game, we have a lot to learn, so that’s what we’re going to do in this next couple games.”

This and that

▪ Bennett has a point in all three games so far this series for Florida, scoring in each of the first two games and getting the primary assist on Tkachuk’s goal in the first period Saturday.

▪ With Florida looking for a spark late, the first instance of a line with Tkachuk, Bennett and Brad Marchand playing on a line together came out in the third period.

▪ Tkachuk was given a five-minute major penalty for interference after the Lightning’s empty-net goal.

This story was originally published April 26, 2025 at 3:49 PM.