Lightning must 'turn the page' after tough loss to Panthers in Game 4

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning were four minutes away from heading back home with a tied series in the Eastern Conference First Round.

Instead, the Florida Panthers took control of the game, and perhaps the series in the process.

Aaron Ekblad tied it 2-2 with 3:47 remaining in the third period, and Seth Jones scored just 11 seconds later for the Panthers, who would go on to win 4-2 in Game 4.

The Lightning now trail 3-1 in the best-of-7 series. Game 5 will be in Tampa, where the Lightning lost Games 1 and 2, on Wednesday (7:30 ET; FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS, ESPN2, TVAS2, SN360).

“Is this series close? It’s really close,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “That’s what makes this Battle of Florida so much fun, because it is two extremely competitive teams that play a great brand of hockey. That’s why you get these tight games.”

The games may be tight, but it was another tough loss for the Lightning to swallow.

Tampa Bay had the momentum after Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak gave it a 2-1 lead by scoring 11 seconds apart midway through the second period.

Then, just 19 seconds into the third period, the Lightning were awarded a five-minute power play after Niko Mikkola was assessed a major for boarding on Zemgus Girgensons. However, they generated just one shot on goal during the power play, which went 0-for-2 on Monday and is 1-for-15 in the series.

“We would love to all score on the power play. That’s part of it," Chaffee said. “It’s part of the game. Good teams are going to score on the power play, but it doesn’t always happen that way. We need to be better 5-on-5. Bounces in the game happen."

It seemed at first as though the bounces might have been going in the Lightning's favor.

Ekblad appeared to tie it 2-2 with a power-play goal at 7:02 of third, but Cooper challenged the play for offside, and the call was reversed after it was determined that not one, but two Panthers players preceded the puck into the offensive zone.

But Florida kept battling, and Ekblad was finally able to tie it 2-2 at 16:13 when he got the rebound of Sam Reinhart's shot and scored over Andrei Vasilevskiy's glove from in tight.

If the goal wasn't bad enough, it was Ekblad who had knocked Lightning forward Brandon Hagel out of the game with a hit along the boards at 11:26 of the second period.

Cooper did not have an update on Hagel, who was making his return after being suspended for Game 3, but did say in his postgame press conference that "it's getting tiresome answering questions about a hit every single game."

After Ekblad's goal, it looked like as though Game 4 would be the first in this series to go to overtime.

Only it did not.

Florida won the ensuing face-off and dumped the puck into the Lightning's zone. Jones then got it at the right point and let go a shot that shot clipped the skate of Tampa Bay defenseman Ryan McDonagh and trickled under the right arm of Vasilevskiy to give the Panthers a 3-2 lead at 16:24.

Carter Verhaeghe sealed the comeback win with an empty-net goal at 18:20.

“Both teams had two spurts of 11 seconds that were really rewarding,” Cooper said. “Theirs came at the end.

“For 115 minutes, we passed every test possible. We just had a tough 11 seconds there at the end of the game. It’s unfortunate. We played well enough to win both games (on the road) and came up a little short."

The Lightning, who flew home shortly after the loss, do not have much time to turn the page if they want to extend their season.

But that's just what they plan to do, as a number of players said.

This series is not over. Not by a long shot.

“We have to turn the page, that’s the bottom line," captain Victor Hedman said. “The next game is in two nights. The playoffs is about ups and downs, and we felt we had the game under control even if it was just one goal. We have been on the other side with these. We just have to turn the page and be ready for the next one."