TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Matthew Tkachuk had two power-play goals and an assist in his first game after a two-month absence and the Florida Panthers opened defence of their Stanley Cup title with a 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night in the first game of the teams' first-round NHL playoff series.
Nate Schmidt scored on a power play and finished with two goals, and Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart each added a goal and an assist for the Panthers. Sergei Bobrovsky made 20 saves.
Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point scored for Tampa Bay. Andrei Vasilevskiy had 10 stops.
The Lightning played the final 33:30 without centre Anthony Cirelli. There was no immediate word why the 27-year-old centre was out.
The teams meet for Game 2 of the best-of-seven series on Thursday at Amalie Arena.
Tkachuk was playing for the first time in more than two months after dealing with a lower-body injury. He scored twice in the second period. Those two goals put Florida up 4-1 — the second goal for the Panthers in a 14-second span — and the next one pushing the lead to 5-1 midway through the second period.
Bennett had opened the scoring at 3:44 of the first, batting a puck out of the air. Guentzel responded for Tampa Bay, scoring with a man advantage at 12:21. The Panthers regained the lead when Reinhart tipped in a shot by Dmitry Kulikov with 44 seconds remaining in the first.
The Panthers broke the game open early in the second when Schmidt scored on a rebound at 4:41. Tampa Bay lost a challenge for goaltender interference on the play, and Tkachuk scored his first on the ensuing power play — 14 seconds later — and added a second at 9:44.
Point cut the deficit to 5-2 at 13:04 of the second. Schmidt added Florida's third power-play goal off a pass from Tkachuk at 5:09 of the third period.
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Erik Erlendsson, The Associated Press
