Panthers at Lightning
THE STORY:
The Tampa Bay Lightning hope to play for only 60 minutes Monday when
they host the Florida Panthers in their home opener. Five of the last
six meetings have gone to overtime and Florida has won four of them –
three in a shootout. The Panthers are off to an excellent start behind
the goaltending of Jose Theodore (2-1-0, 1.97, .930), who is expected to
carry the load this season. The Lightning have an unexpected scoring
leader in defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron. He scored both goals in Tampa
Bay’s 3-2 shootout loss at Florida on Saturday and has five points. It
will be a homecoming of sorts for Florida’s Sean Bergenheim, who had
nine goals with Tampa Bay during the Lightning’s 2011 playoff run to
Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. This is the 100th meeting –
Florida leads the series 54-35-10.
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, SunSports (Tampa Bay)
ABOUT THE PANTHERS (2-1-0): Theodore is 12-6-2 with a 2.12 goals
against average in his career against Tampa Bay and is expected to start
Monday. Florida’s top line of Tomas Fleischmann, Stephen Weiss and Kris
Versteeg has combined for seven of the Panthers’ 18 points. Fleischmann
is showing no ill effects after missing the final 36 games last season
because of a pulmonary embolism and blood clots in both lungs while with
Colorado.
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (1-2-2): The Lightning, who
begin a three-game homestand, have lost four straight since their
season-opening 5-1 victory at Carolina. Tampa Bay’s power play is
0-for-14 in the last four games and 2-for-20 this season. Vincent
Lecavalier has seven goals and 10 assists in his last 15 games against
Florida. The Lightning have missed their last five shootout attempts and
have lost five of their last six shootout games overall.
OVERTIME:
1. Since the beginning of 2010-11, Florida is 5-1-1 against Tampa Bay.
2. The over is 7-0-0 in the Lightning’s last seven return meetings of a home-and-home situation.