SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Jack Finley scored his first NHL goal early in the third period to break a tie and the Tampa Bay Lightning held on to beat the Florida Panthers 3-1 on Saturday night.
Emil Lilleberg and Zemgus Girgensons also scored for the Lightning. They improved to 8-2-0 in their last 10 games and 5-2-2 on the road.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 23 shots for Tampa Bay.
Brad Marchand scored his team-leading 12th goal of the season for Florida, a power-play tally midway through the second period that tied it at 1.
But Finley picked up a loose puck near the blue line and skated in alone on goalie Sergei Bobrovsky for what became the go-ahead goal 4:09 into the third. Girgensons sealed it with an empty-netter with 50.3 seconds remaining.
Bobrovsky made 17 saves for Florida, which saw its two-game winning streak snapped.
It was the first game between the teams since Oct. 4, a preseason contest that saw more than 300 penalty minutes and both rosters getting depleted because so many players were sent to the locker room early because of those infractions.
And this game was chippy at times — as Lightning-Panthers games tend to be — but it was nothing like the penalty-fest from the preseason. There were only 14 penalties, 13 of them 2-minute minors and the other a 4-minute double minor against the Lightning in the third. There were some scuffles, but nothing that rose to the level of a fighting penalty or a major.
Lightning: Host Vancouver on Sunday night.
Panthers: Host Vancouver on Monday night.
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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
