Lightning coach Jon Cooper, whose team didn't get its first shot on goal until there was 4:05 left in the first period, said he was not disappointed with the way they played.
"It's two good teams, tight checking, teams do check," Cooper said. "What we have to do is when we get the chance, we have to put [the puck] behind them, but I can't sit here and say one team outchanced the other one. It was pretty tight-checking game, and in the end, it was a power-play goal that did it."
That goal belonged to Verhaeghe, who found just enough open ice in the crease to deflect home a gorgeous cross-ice feed from Aleksander Barkov to give Florida a 2-1 lead 58 seconds into the third.
"I gave the puck to 'Barky' and went to the net," Verhaeghe said. "I didn't see the pass, it just hit my stick, that's how well Barky can pass the puck."
The goal seemed to open things up a bit, with Florida getting 13 shots on goal in the third and Tampa Bay nine after having 10 combined through the first two periods.
When the Lightning finally did get some space to make a play, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky shut it down, making key saves in the final minutes, including a right pad stop on Steven Stamkos' one-timer that eventually led to Tkachuk's empty-net goal with 2:05 left.
"I just tried to push there and get as much body as I could there," said Bobrovsky, who made 17 saves, also allowing a 6-on-4 goal to Stamkos with 9.3 seconds left in the game.
On the other end, Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was just as solid, allowing a tip-in goal from Sam Reinhart at 6:17 of the first, and Verhaeghe's power-play goal.
Seconds after the Lightning finally got their first shot of the game, they tied it, Brandon Hagel banging home a rebound of a shot from Anthony Cirelli at 16:04 of the opening period.
Maurice said each goalie had to be sharp because of the long stretches of inactivity.
"I think that's the two guys that had the real challenge tonight were in the net, because there were stretches of grind," Maurice said. "They both made really, two to three really important saves, and the guys in front of both goalies worked hard to keep it tight. So there wasn't a lot going on."
Neither team expects a lot to be going on when the best-of-7 series resumes with Game 2 here Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; BSSUN, BSFL, ESPN2, TVAS2, SN360). That's fine with them.
"It's not really frustrating," Verhaeghe said. "We come in here, we expect it. Every game we are playing against a really good team. It's going to be a tight-checking game. We know they have weapons. They know we have weapons.
"I think anytime you come to one of these games it's going to be one break that wins the game, and that's what makes it so intense and so fun and exciting."
Cooper, who won the Stanley Cup coaching the Lightning in 2020 and 2021 and went to the Cup Final in 2022, said his players will adjust and respond to anything thrown at them.
"Have you seen us play in the playoffs for the last decade? These boys have weathered all the frustration they possibly can, and we've seen it every different way," Cooper said. "Florida is an exceptional team. They are going to do this. They have been doing this to teams all year and they are going to do it to us for the rest of the playoffs and so it's our job to fight through it.
"They ended up winning the game, but there were probably times in the game they were frustrated as hell, too. That's part of playoff hockey. You have to fight through it."
Hagel said he's confident the Lightning will find a way to do just that.
"We've got time tomorrow, a few days to kind of look at things and go back and try to find solutions, but it's a good hockey team over there," Hagel said. "Come Game 2, I'm sure we'll be ready and find a couple of ways, hopefully. Maybe we can get a few more pucks there, a few more bodies there and give ourselves a few more looks."
