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TAMPA — Florida Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk had been sidelined since the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February. He missed Florida’s final 25 games of the regular season.
But the star of the Panthers’ Stanley Cup title run last year returned to the ice Tuesday night and wasted no time getting back into the action, scoring twice in Florida’s 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of the first round at Amalie Arena.
“The main thing was just being back and being back with the guys and being able to compete with them and just being around them again,” Tkachuk said. “It’s been a long two months. Some good days, some bad days. So many highs and lows. I’ve just got a ton of people to thank for getting me to this point, and it was nice to play out there for them, too. It was just great to be back out with the guys.
Tkachuk’s first goal was the second in quick succession in the second period. The Panthers entered the period up 2-1, and defenseman Nate Schmidt extended the lead to 3-1 when he cleaned up a rebound and put it in the back of the net.
The Lightning challenged the goal for goaltender interference, but Schmidt’s score stood. The Panthers earned a power play for the failed challenge, and Tkachuk made Tampa Bay pay with a power-play goal 14 seconds later.
The Lightning entered the postseason with the NHL’s top offense, but it was the Panthers who got a flurry of goals in the series opener. Florida got on the board first, as rookie Mackie Samoskevich found Sam Bennett in front of Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and the second-line center re-directed the puck in mid-air past the veteran Lightning goaltender for the first goal of the playoffs.
Tampa Bay struck back later in the first period. Tkachuk took a penalty for roughing, and near the end of the power play, Lightning forward Jake Guentzel corralled a rebound right next to the net and snuck it past Sergei Bobrovsky’s foot to tie the game with 7:39 left in the first period.
Sam Reinhart, who scored the winning goal in Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final, put the Panthers back ahead. Reinhart deflected a shot from Dmitry Kulikov into the net in the final minute of the first quarter.
After Schmidt and Tkachuk gave the Panthers some breathing room, the scoring barrage continued with Tkachuk’s second power-play goal 9:44 into the second period, putting Florida up 5-1 about 30 minutes into the game.
“(Tkachuk is) not really a guy you can put a label on, right?” Schmidt said. “Because he’s such a unicorn of a player.”
Tampa Bay got a goal back with a second-period goal by Brayden Point, but Schmidt scored his second of the game on a third-period power play that extended the Panthers’ lead back to four on the team’s third power-play goal of the night.
Although the Panthers got a resounding victory in Game 1, Maurice cautioned about reading too much into the win.
“I don’t mean to be a downer here, but (I am) not a huge believer in momentum,” Maurice said. “Really not. Puck drops — that’s your opportunity to change momentum. That’s going to happen at the opening face-off. Both teams will look at the game and find things they can do better. Some would be just special teams. But there isn’t an established identity to the series yet. … It’ll be a complete reset by both teams for the next one.”
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