Olympians Lead Bolts to Victory in Battle of Florida
- Michelle Gordon
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
Six Lightning Olympians scored tonight to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a resounding beatdown of their archrivals in the regular season's final installment of the Battle of Florida. Tampa Bay takes the season series three games to one. With the win, the Bolts climb to 78 points in 55 games on the season and increase their lead in the Atlantic to six points over Montreal (57 games) and Detroit (58 games). The Lightning go into the Olympic break on a five-game win streak with a sparkling (and almost unbelievable) record of 19-1-1 in their last 21 games.
The Battle of Florida Takes Shape
In the final night of hockey before the Olympic break, the Battle of Florida took center stage in its final installment of the regular season. In their prior three contests, the road team had won each one. The Lightning were looking to change that trend tonight and head into the three-week break on a five-game win streak.
The Panthers, meanwhile, had struggled of late, having lost four straight prior to snatching a shootout victory against the Boston Bruins last night. They definitely need to grab points where they can, as they came into this game sitting eight points out of a playoff spot.
Canadian and Latvian Olympians Get the Bolts Rolling
The Bolts got started early off the stick of Canadian Olympian Brandon Hagel (though not quite as early as the last time they wore these Stadium Series jerseys). Just over two minutes in, Hagel tipped in a shot from Captain Victor Hedman to give the boys in blue a 1-0 lead.
The Lightning were a little sloppy in their own zone after that. They gave the Panthers multiple scoring chances by failing to clear pucks. But Andrei Vasilevskiy stood tall in the net (no fighting this time) and stopped everything the stinkin’ Panthers fired his way.
At 14:08, the Bolts doubled their lead as the Girgensons-Gourde-Holmberg line applied relentless pressure. Latvian Olympian Zemgus Girgensons rifled in his 7th of the season from Swedish Olympian Pontus Holmberg and Yanni Gourde to make it 2-0.
But a little over a minute later, the Lightning got into some penalty trouble. Nikita Kucherov took a cross-checking penalty, and just over 30 seconds into it, Girgensons was whistled for tripping, giving the Panthers a five-on-three advantage for 1:25. Tampa Bay did a masterful job on the penalty kill to keep the score 2-0. The Panthers dominated the shot clock by a 19-7 count through 20 minutes, but where it counted, the Lightning led 2-0.
American and Slovakian Olympians Keep it Going in the Second
After surviving the penalty trouble in the first period, the Lightning got their chance on the man advantage to start the second period. They capitalized, as US Olympian Jake Guentzel wristed a rebound past goaltender Daniil Tarasov for his 26th of the season. Nikita Kucherov assisted on the goal to extend his point streak to 10 games.
Florida continued to press, but once again Vasilevskiy held strong in the net, making brilliant saves.
As time wound down in the middle frame, another Olympian wowed the crowd with his moves, as Slovakian Olympian Erik Cernak scored his first goal of the season (first since February 27th of last year) on a… beautiful wraparound!
Through two periods, the Lightning led this one 4-0.
Swedish and Danish Olympians Join the Festivities
Tempers flared in the third period as the physical play that has come to be expected in this rivalry came to a head. Hagel and the villainous Matthew Tkachuk exchanged blows. Hagel seemed to get the best of the Panther captain, wrestling the shirt off his back. Meanwhile, Gustav Forsling held JJ Moser down on the ice and repeatedly threw punches at him as the referees struggled to pull him off. When all was said and done, the referees read off a laundry list of penalties, and the Lightning ended up with a five-on-three for two minutes.
The Bolts scored just as the penalties expired. Swedish Olympian Pontus Holmberg tallied his 9th of the season to make it 5-0.
Curtis Douglas was then assessed a five-minute major, and the Panthers broke Vasilevskiy's shutout bid with a power play goal. But before the night was done, one more Olympian wanted his moment. Denmark Olympian Oliver Bjorkstrand scored an unassisted goal at 15:41 to round out the scoring.
The Lightning defeated their in-state rivals by a final score of 6-1. It bears repeating that the Bolts are 19-1-1 in their last 21 games. What a ride it has been!
Seven Stars
1. Andrei Vasilevskiy—stopped 33 of 34 shots
2-7. The Olympians—6 players representing their countries in the coming weeks — did Tampa Bay proud tonight!
Up Next
The NHL will now take a break for 3 weeks as many players head to Milan to represent their countries in the Winter Olympics. We will next see the Bolts on Wednesday, February 25th at Benchmark International Arena as they face off against the Maple Leafs at 7:30pm.