*Photo from Sportsnet*
Florida leads series 3-0
One game away. Steven Lorentz had a goal and an assist, Brandon Montour had an identical line, and the Florida Panthers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning with a 5-3 victory Thursday night in Tampa Bay.
With the win, the Panthers are one game away from sweeping the Lightning and advancing to the second round. Montour, Lorentz, and Matthew Tkachuk had two point games as Tkachuk scored two goals. It's quite a turnaround from their last playoff meeting that ended in a sweep for the Lightning.
Tkachuk said of being up 3-0 that "We're in a position right now that we would have dreamed about at the beginning of the series. But there have been stretches where they have played really well, and I think it's been a really close series so far in the first three games. We've been getting some unbelievable goaltending, that's really weathered the storm for us."
The only goal of the first period came from Tkachuk, who gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Just 44 seconds into the second period, Steven Stamkos scored to tie the game for the Lightning. At the 2:56 mark of the period, Tyler Motte gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead. Sam Reinhart tied the game later in the second to make it a 2-2 game.
At the 16:30 mark of the second, Montour scored his first goal of the playoffs to give the Panthers a 3-2 lead. Lorentz scored 9:41 into the 3rd period to make it 4-2 Panthers on the eventual game winning goal. Nick Paul scored to cut the deficit to 4-3 at the 14:50 mark of the period. Tkachuk scored his second goal of the game on an empty net to make it 5-3.
Montour said after the game that "Being at home for them, they're going to have pushes throughout the game. We stay even keel. We're down in the game, we kept pushing. Fourth line came up big, each line produced in many ways defensively and offensively. We got the lead and held on and kept pushing for the next one."
Drawing the start for the Panthers was once again Sergei Bobrovsky, who won his 3rd straight game of the series. Bobrovsky turned aside 26 out of the 29 shots on goal the Lightning sent his way, recording a .897 save percentage.
Getting the start in goal for the Lightning opposite Bobrovsky was Andrei Vasilevskiy. In the loss, Vasilevskiy stopped 26 of the 30 shots the Panthers offense tested him with, giving him a .867 save percentage.
Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said of the series deficit that "It's tough when you get in situations like this, what you're going to say right at this moment. But the talk was we want the believers to show up at the rink tomorrow and if you’re not going to believe, you don’t have to come. So, we’ll see who shows up tomorrow."
Game 4 of the series is set for Saturday afternoon. The Panthers need a win to punch their ticket to the second round, while the Lightning need to win to keep the series going.
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