Steven Stamkos scored two goals and dished two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 47 saves as the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Florida Panthers 5-3 on Saturday night in Sunrise, Fla.
Stamkos, with 27 goals this season and 542 for his career, passed Stan Mikita for 33rd place on the NHL’s all-time list. Stamkos needs three more tallies to notch his ninth season of at least 30 goals.
Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov added an empty-netter, his 40th goal of the season.
The Lightning have won three straight games — all against teams in playoff position — and got one goal each from Michael Eyssimont and Darren Raddysh.
Florida’s Sam Reinhart scored twice and ranks second in the NHL with 48. He also leads the league with 27 power-play goals.
Florida, which had won four straight games in its rivalry with Tampa Bay, also got a goal from Matthew Tkachuk.
Sergei Bobrovsky, who leads the Eastern Conference with 32 wins, made 11 saves in a losing effort.
Florida, which has lost two straight games, fell behind 2-0 in the first period.
Stamkos opened the scoring 20 seconds into the game on a two-on-one rush as his pass went in off the skate of Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour.
Eyssimont made it 2-0 on a breakaway at 13:21. His initial shot was stopped, but he then shoved the rebound in between Bobrovsky’s pads.
The Lightning increased their lead to 4-0 in the second. First, Raddysh took a cross-ice pass from Anthony Duclair before scoring on a high shot from the right circle at 3:02. About four minutes later, Stamkos scored on a five-on-three power-play one-timer from the left circle.
But the Panthers battled back, closing the second period with just a 4-2 deficit as Tkachuk scored short-handed on a three-on-one breakaway at 8:23 and Reinhart came through with a power-play rebound goal at 11:55.
Toward the end of the second period, the Panthers had a five-on-three power play for 53 seconds. However, the Lightning killed off both penalties.
The Panthers cut their deficit to 4-3 on Reinhart’s second goal with 3:52 left in the third, but Kucherov’s empty-netter sealed the game with 1:32 left.
–Field Level Media
