The Backcheck: Another strong third period leads Bolts over Cats

The Tampa Bay Lightning picked up a third win through four games of a season-long, six-game homestand on Saturday with a 4-1 victory over their intrastate rival Florida Panthers, who the Bolts have now beaten twice in two meetings this season.

Florida came out flying right off the opening draw with a strong opening shift that saw Andrei Vasilevskiy stand tall in the crease and make four saves in the first 75 seconds of the game to keep the score tied at zero. The Lightning built off Vasilevskiy's strong start and earned an early power play when Eric Staal took a tripping penalty in the offensive zone at the 2:33 mark. From there, the Bolts were able to gain some momentum and take off with a really strong first period.
While Tampa Bay didn't score on the power play, the first goal of the game came shortly after with Pat Maroon getting his first goal of the season at the 8:40 mark of the period. Cycling the puck down low, Anthony Cirelli did a terrific job to win a puck battle against Colin White in the corner before sending a perfect pass to Maroon in the slot. Using a bit of a screen from Aaron Ekblad in front, Maroon ripped a wrist shot right into the top left corner and looked skyward to the rafters after scoring a well-deserved, long-awaited first goal of the year.
"It's nice," said Maroon. "Obviously, it's frustrating that it takes 27 games. You just try to work hard and try to grind through these slumps.
"For me, obviously it's not about points. It's about playing the right way, playing hard and playing heavy. Create some havoc, create some O-zone time, lean on the D and set the next line up.
"But it's nice to get rewarded tonight. Hopefully the floodgates open and I get a couple more here, but it's nice. I feel like I've been stringing some games together and playing some good hockey here, so it's nice to get that one out of the way."

With how well Maroon has played over the past several games, it was clear that first goal would be coming soon.
Going into Saturday's game, Maroon's expected goals for percentage at 5-on-5 over his last five contests were 73.39%, 85.94%, 65.23%, 85.65% and 55.45%. Translation - when Maroon has been on the ice at 5-on-5, good things have been happening for Tampa Bay.
"He's been playing well," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "He's getting a little run there with Tony and Colton. A lot of zone time. Great play by Tony down low to slide one in there.
"It was coming for him. It was just going to be when. He's been getting a ton of chances."
Going into the second period with a 1-0 lead, the Bolts were forced to kill off four separate penalties and weren't able to generate much flow at all at 5-on-5, simply because there wasn't a lot of even strength hockey being played.
Florida got a fortunate bounce when Zac Dalpe threw a puck toward the net that deflected off a defender and past Vasilevskiy, but Tampa Bay did a good job to kill off all four penalties and went into the second intermission with the game tied at one.
The PK looked strong with some aggressive puck pursuit and Vasilevskiy made some really big saves along the way as well, including one of his best stops of the year with an incredible toe save on Sam Reinhart.
"I think a big thing for us was that save Vasy makes on Reinhart," said Cooper. "That's a big-time save.
"We talk about it all the time. You make the ones you're supposed to, but there's some of those that are big-time, timely saves and Vas made that one. We kind of took it home from there."

Lightning fans are lucky to be able to watch a goaltender like Vasilevskiy between the pipes on a nightly basis. Those huge saves like the one on Reinhart seem to happen nearly every game. When Tampa Bay needs a big save, Vasilevskiy makes it.
"Vasy's awesome," said Maroon. "I don't want to look at his numbers because he's been a hell of a goalie for so many years. He's been carrying this team. He makes the big-time saves when we need them.
"He's been good all year. He's been making some key saves all year. In the beginning, I'm sure he was a bit frustrated, but he stays calm. He sticks with it. He works just as hard, and he gets rewarded for it.
"He's been playing some really good hockey down the stretch, even though he's been good for us all year."
From there, the Lightning took control. Just over three minutes into the third period, Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point showed off that chemistry that has been so impressive throughout the entire season when Kucherov found Point in the slot before he fired a wrist shot right under the glove of Bobrovsky to put the Bolts back up by one.
Point has now scored goals in six consecutive games against the Panthers and has scored eight goals over his last eight games this season.
"I'm getting good looks," said Point on his success against the Panthers. "Obviously a heck of a goalie, but tonight even, Kuch makes a great pass, and he almost gets over there. I don't know. Lately things have been going well against Florida."
Following the goal from Point, Mikhail Sergachev got his fifth goal of the season at the 7:22 mark when he collected the puck on the boards in the offensive zone and threw it at the net, where Bobrovsky was scrambling to get to his feet and get over to the post.
The Panthers challenged for goaltender interference on the play but were unsuccessful and gave Tampa Bay an additional power play on top of the 3-1 lead.
The Lightning did what we've seen them do so frequently over the past several years and shut things down defensively, making it really hard on Florida to generate any kind of consistent offense in hopes of a comeback.
With 3:15 remaining, Stamkos put the icing on the cake with career goal number 496, a beautiful backhand-forehand move on a breakaway that beat Bobrovsky clean to the right post. He's scored goals in four straight games against the Panthers.

Stamkos pushed his point streak to 13 games with the goal, the longest among Lightning skaters this season and the fourth-longest among all NHL skaters.
The 13-game point streak is tied for the second-longest in Tampa Bay franchise history, trailing only the 18-game point streak Stamkos had during the 2009-10 season.
"Just flying under the radar," said Stamkos. "It's fun. When you're on a streak like that, it just seems like you're finding ways.
"Whether you're having a good game or not, sometimes it's a little bounce here or there if you stick with it. I think that's been the case with some of them, but certainly feeling good with the puck and it's nice to do it in some wins here."
Alex Killorn picked up the primary assist on the goal, as he has on so many Stamkos goals over the years, and now has sole possession of the seventh-most points and eighth-most assists in Lightning franchise history. Meanwhile, Nick Paul grabbed the secondary assist for the 100th point of his NHL career.
It felt like a vintage Bolts performance on Saturday. The Lightning went into the third in a tie game, stuck with the process, got the lead, and shut things down defensively with some excellent goaltending along the way.
"That's the Tampa Bay Lightning the last three years that you guys have watched - 2-1 games, 2-2 games," said Maroon. "We're closing games out the right way. We're playing the right way. We're sticking to the structure. We're not trying to chase the game.
"We're sticking with it and we're playing a full 60. That's our game. That's our hockey. We have a great hockey team in here and I think if we stick to the game plan everything will work out."