Matthew Tkachuck returned to action for the Florida Panthers and provided an instant offensive spark as he scored twice, with both goals coming on the power play, as the visitors shocked the Tampa Bay Lightning with a 6-2 victory. Florida had just 16 shots on goal, but put 6 of them past Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Lightning’s power play struggled as Florida scored on all three opportunities, needing just 2:41 of ice time to score three times with the extra skater.
It was the road team that opened the scoring as Sam Bennett bunted home a waist-high pass from Mackie Samoskevich less than four minutes into the game.