"It would've been nice to finish on a high note at home, but unfortunately it didn't happen tonight," Panthers interim head coach Andrew Brunette said. "I think we gave [the fans] a lot of great memories during the regular season, and now it's time to build them in the playoffs."
Connecting on their first shot of the game, the Lightning raced out to an early lead when Nikita Kucherov roofed a shot over Spencer Knight's shoulder to make it 1-0 at 2:37 of the first period.
Moments after having a goal taken off the board for goaltender inference, the Panthers left no doubt the second time around when Sam Reinhart took a pass from Anton Lundell and wired a shot straight over Andrei Vasilevsky's glove and into the back of the cage to make it 1-1 at 4:31.
Setting up shop in usual spot in the center of the left circle on the power play, Steven Stamkos put the Lightning back up when he blasted home a one-timer to make it 2-1 at 6:44. A little bit later, Cal Foote finished off a tic-tac-toe passing sequence with a goal to make it 3-1 at 14:58.
Feeding off a great forecheck from the fourth line, Brandon Montour cut into the deficit for the Panthers when he fired off a heavy slap shot from the point that cruised past Vasilevskiy, who was blinded by a huge screen from Patric Hornqvist, and into the net to make it 3-2 at 17:28.
Getting the game all square once again just 59 seconds into the second period, Mason Marchment flew down the ice and tapped a dribbling puck past Vasilevskiy to make it 3-3.
Making a highlight-reel move to regain the lead for the Lightning, Nick Paul took a backdoor pass from Brandon Hagel and beat Knight with a between-the-legs goal from in front to make it 4-3 at 5:28. Not done there, Paul then scored again at 12:59 to increase the advantage to 5-3.
Following that second goal from Paul, Sergei Bobrovsky relieved Knight in Florida's net.
"I thought we did a lot of good things and kind of self-inflicted in a few different areas," Brunette said. "Hey, it happens. I thought our 5-on-5 play was really [good]. The tail end of some power plays got us in a little bit of trouble."
With no love lost between rivals, Sam Bennett and Mikael Sergachev dropped the gloves later in the middle frame - the first of two fights that would take place throughout the contest -- with the Panthers center leaving the Lightning defensemen bloodied following the very heated brawl.
"I'm happy with the way our team stuck together there," Marchment said. "No one's going to push us around now or ever. I think that was one thing we're going to take out of this [game]."
Cashing in on the power play second time, Brayden Point scored to send the Lightning ahead 6-3 at 3:34 of the third period. But less than four minutes later, Reinhart answered with a power-play goal of his own for the Panthers to get the deficit back down to two and make it 6-4 at 7:04.
After Kucherov struck again to up Tampa Bay's advantage to 7-4 at 11:36, Stamkos followed suit with his second goal on the power play to make it 8-4 with just 3:26 remaining in regulation.
Facing off for the final time this season, the Cats finish with a 2-1-1 record against the Bolts.
"We got in a little penalty trouble, and they scored on the power play," Brunette said. "They're a great power-play team. We know that going in, but it's a hockey game. We showed our resilience, we showed our grit and didn't back down. We fought through adversity, outside influences, and we played our game."
Here are five takeaways from Sunday's loss to Tampa Bay…