Lightning wrap up preseason with a win in Sunrise

The 2023 NHL Preseason is officially over.

The Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up their preseason with a 5-2 record after a 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers Saturday night at Amerant Bank Arena behind 27 saves from Jonas Johansson and goals from Tanner Jeannot, Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel and Brayden Point.

The Bolts got on the board early in Sunrise when Waltteri Merela sent a backhand pass to the point for Darren Raddysh, who hammered a slap shot towards the net that got redirected by Jeannot and past Sergei Bobrovsky 2:37 into the game.

The goal was Jeannot’s second of the preseason, while Raddysh picked up his team-leading third assist and Merela collected his fourth point, tied for the most among all Lightning skaters.

“The kid's gotten better with every game,” said Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper after the game. “He looks more comfortable out there. The big thing is, you look at the puck battles and he wins them.

“Sometimes when you're a little bigger, you can put yourself in those positions to win those battles. He's got a big body. You have to be able to use it and he does. He's definitely going to make decisions tough on us.”

Florida evened the score with 8:26 left in the first period with Ryan Lomberg firing a wrist shot from just inside the blue line that got past Johansson to make it 1-1 with the Panthers on the penalty kill.

Just over five minutes later, the Bolts regained the lead after a Florida turnover ended up on the stick of Conor Sheary and he sent a pass to the slot for Cirelli, who made a nice move to the backhand to beat Bobrovsky and grab the 2-1 lead with 2:59 left in the first.

Florida had an immediate answer 32 seconds later when Matthew Tkachuk found Eetu Luostarinen, who fired a shot past Johansson to even the score at two going into the first intermission.

The game-winning goal would come 12:18 into the second period with the Panthers on the power play and Hagel recording his second shorthanded tally of the preseason. In typical relentless fashion, Hagel intercepted an entry pass from Evan Rodrigues and bolted down the ice before an attempted move to his backhand went off the skate of Mike Reilly. But as Rodrigues went to collect the loose puck, Hagel lifted his stick, regained possession at the left circle and immediately fired a quick shot to the far post to give Tampa Bay the 3-2 lead.

Following two consecutive shutouts to open the preseason, Johansson stopped 18 straight Florida shots following the Luostarinen goal in the first period. In his three appearances this preseason, Johansson went 3-0-0 with two shutouts and 94 saves on 96 shots.

“The one thing for a goalie, they’ve got to be calm in the net,” said Cooper. “I think both guys, JJ and [Matt] Tomkins, have been really calm in the net. They’re letting pucks hit them and then our guys are doing a good job in clearing those rebounds.

“Sometimes you have to make that save we need and he made those early in the first period. The one thing for me, he just looks comfortable in there. You can tell on our bench, they’re pretty comfortable with either one of those guys in there.

“Good sign for me that he’s not playing an uneasy game and that’s a good sign for him.”

The Lightning added an insurance goal 40 seconds into the third period with Nikita Kucherov sending a pass down low to Steven Stamkos, who found Point in the slot before he quickly fired a shot top shelf to increase the lead to 4-2.

As the team has done so well in years past, Tampa Bay shut things down in the third period, outshooting the Panthers 10-6 and keeping the chances against to a minimum.

“Today, especially that third period, we started to look like a team,” Cooper said. “We were doing all the right things. What you're going to have to do in the regular season, we started doing.

“You talk about the last thing that's fresh in your head going into a game, that was the period I wanted to be fresh in our head, so overall pretty happy with the way things played out.”

Now, the real fun begins. With the preseason in the books, the Lightning will have the day off Sunday then get back on the ice for practice ahead of their NHL season-opening contest against the Nashville Predators at AMALIE Arena on Tuesday.

“Overall, I think pretty good preseason,” said Hagel. “Worked hard. I thought the whole group worked. Obviously, new things are happening so nothing’s going to be perfect, but I thought we worked hard at it, and I guess we’ll see on Tuesday.”