Takeaways as Sam Reinhart, Aaron Ekblad lead Florida Panthers to win over Lightning

The first meeting of the NHL’s teams from the Sunshine State goes to the Florida Panthers.

Aaron Ekblad scored his first goal of the season, Sam Reinhart scored his 20th and 21st, and the Panthers held off a third-period rally attempt for a 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday at Tampa’s Amalie Arena.

Florida improves to 20-12-2, while the Lightning falls to 17-13-5 and has its three-game win streak snapped. Dating back to last season, the Panthers have won three consecutive games against the Lightning and picked up points in four of the past five meetings.

Ekblad, playing in his 17th game of the season after missing the first month and a half while recovering from offseason shouler surgery, opened scoring 4:16 into the game with a wrist shot from the right circle that got though traffic and past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Reinhart then made it 2-0 early in the second period when his wrist shot from up close capped a series of efficient passes with linemates Evan Rodrigues and Aleksander Barkov. Reinhart added his second goal of the game with a shorthanded goal in the third period for his fifth multi-goal game of the season.

This marks the seventh consecutive season that Reinhart has scored at least 20 goals. He is just the fourth player in Panthers history to log 20 goals within his first 34 games played in a season, joining Pavel Bure (30 goals through 34 games in 1999-2000 season), Barkov (21 goals through 34 games in 2021-22 season) and Sam Bennett (20 goals through 34 games in 2021-22 season).

Barkov had an assist on all three Panthers goals. He now has 412 career assists, three shy of tying Jonathan Huberdeau for the Panthers’ franchise mark.

The Panthers and Lightning will meet two more times this regular season: Feb. 17 in Tampa and March 16 in Sunrise.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Sergei Bobrovsky does his part

It was only natural that the Lightning was going to find the back of the net at some point.

But for the first 40 minutes on Wednesday, Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was perfect. He stopped all 19 shots he faced in the first two periods to give the Panthers the opportunity to build their early 2-0 lead.

The Lightning then cut Florida’s lead to just one goal twice in the third period, first when Nikita Kucherov scored 29 seconds into the final frame and then again when Michael Eyssimont made it 3-2 about three-and-a-half minutes into the period.

But Bobrovsky locked down afterward, stopping the final six shots he faced — including a sprawling save to rob Brayden Point on a breakaway midway through the frame — to finish with 27 saves and preserve the win.

Bobrovsky improves to 16-9-1 on the season and 12-11-3 all-time against the Lightning.

Panthers penalty kill shuts down Lightning power play

The Lightning entered Wednesday with the second-best power play unit in the NHL, converting on 30.4 percent of their opportunities with the man advantage.

So when Florida gave Tampa Bay two power-play chances in the first period, it was imperative that the Panthers find a way to shut down the Lightning.

Mission accomplished.

Bobrovsky stopped all seven of the Lightning’s shots on those two power plays to preserve Florida’s lead.

The penalty kill has been one of Florida’s pleasant surprises this season, entering Wednesday ranked as the eighth-best unit in the league with an 82.9-percent kill rate.

A back-to-back at home to end 2023

The Panthers close out the 2023 calendar year with a pair of home games on Friday and Saturday. The back-to-back set begins with a game against the New York Rangers on Friday before Florida hosts the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m. puck drops.