Panthers score six, hand Lightning first home loss of season

TAMPA -- The Florida Panthers scored four times during a seven-goal second period and handed the Tampa Bay Lightning their first home loss of the season, 6-4 at Amalie Arena on Monday.

Frank Vatrano scored on a penalty shot, and Chris Driedger made 27 saves for the Panthers (9-2-2), who won twice in the three-game set against the Lightning.

"Good bounce-back game," Florida coach Joel Quenneville said. "They bounced back after the first game, and we bounced back after the second game. We did some good things today. A lot of pucks went in the net. We had a real good last ten minutes of the game."
Alexander Volkov scored twice, and Curtis McElhinney made 15 saves for the Lightning (10-3-1), who started the season 6-0-0 at home, matching their record from 2017-18.
"A lot of odd-mans, breakaways and looks that we pride ourselves on not giving up, especially that many in a game," Tampa Bay defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "We needed to make it hard on them like we did last game. We didn't do that enough tonight."
Steven Stamkos put the Lightning ahead 1-0 at 6:24 of the first period. He returned to the lineup after missing the previous two games at Florida, a 5-2 loss on Thursday because of a lower-body injury and a 6-2 win on Saturday because he was on the NHL COVID-19 protocol list.

Jonathan Huberdeau tied it 1-1 at 7:56, scoring into an open net off a turnover from McElhinney.
Owen Tippett scored his first NHL goal since October 26, 2017, to give the Panthers a 2-1 lead at 4:59 of the second period.
"They didn't do anything really to us, it was all self-inflicted," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "Like the first one, self-inflicted. The second one, self-inflicted. We had full control of the puck and we just handed it over to them. Sometimes you get what you deserve, and we got what we deserved tonight."
Vatrano made it 3-1 on a penalty shot at 8:39, his third goal in the past three games. He was awarded the shot after Lightning defenseman Luke Schenn was whistled for tripping him on a breakaway.
Anthony Duclair made it 4-1 at 10:23 on a wraparound, his first goal in 12 games with Florida.
"It was a great feeling," Duclair said. "I knew it was coming. Just happy to get one."

Volkov scored on a shot from the right face-off circle to make it 4-2 at 11:42, but Aleksander Barkov answered at 12:36 to push the lead to 5-2.
"We were playing slow and turning pucks over," Lightning forward Pat Maroon said. "We were just too slow in the [defensive] zone, especially against that team. We shot ourselves in the foot. That's not how we're supposed to be playing."
Volkov scored from in close to cut it to 5-3 at 15:50, and Tyler Johnson finished an odd-man rush at 16:38 to make it 5-4, the seventh goal of the period.
"We had a good start to the period, got some goals, and you saw they got desperate and upped their game, and we couldn't handle their surge," Panthers defenseman Anton Stralman said. "It turned out to be wild, and then it kind of settled down in the third."
The Panthers tightened up on defense, and Driedger made consecutive saves on Stamkos and Mikhail Sergachev after Aaron Ekblad was called for hooking at 18:14 of the second.
"Go back to the late kill in the second and they had all the momentum," Quenneville said. "We stabilized it a little with that kill. We got our composure back."
Stralman extended Florida's lead to 6-4 with his first goal of the season 59 seconds into the third period.
"[That goal] was huge," Driedger said. "Seeing [Stralman] do a little dipsy dangle and go shelf is pretty cool too."
The Lightning had another power play with 3:15 remaining in the third period and pulled McElhinney for a 6-on-4 advantage.
"I thought the game was winnable the whole time," Cooper said. "We scored four. I felt great going into the third period, and to give up a goal in the first minute is inexcusable."
NOTES:It wasHuberdeau's 153rd NHL goal, moving him past Pavel Bure into fourth place in Panthers history behind Scott Mellanby (157), Barkov (160) and Olli Jokinen (188). … Barkov's two points gave him 421 to move past Jokinen for second in Panthers history. Huberdeau is first with 454. … Carter Verhaeghe had two assists for Florida. ... Johnson has three goals in his past two games.