December 23 - A.J. Greer and Eetu Luostarinen tallied short-handed goals on the same penalty kill as the visiting Florida Panthers opened a home-and-home series with three special-teams scores, beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 on Sunday.
Sam Reinhart scored twice, racking up his 18th tally in 32 career games against the Lightning as the Panthers won their fourth straight game and took the NHL lead with 40 special teams markers.
Including April's playoffs, the Panthers topped Tampa Bay for the ninth time in 11 games (9-2-0) and improved to 14-0-0 when leading after two periods.
Aaron Ekblad extended his point streak to four games by recording career assist No. 250, breaking a tie with former center Stephen Weiss for third all-time in team history.
Backup goaltender Spencer Knight got the nod and stopped 19 shots for his sixth win. Winger Evan Rodrigues played in his 500th game.
Tampa Bay's Brayden Point notched his team-leading 22nd goal, and Nick Paul hit the net, but the Lightning's four-game winning streak came to an end. They lost for just the fourth in 12 games (8-4-0) and fell to 0-4-0 against their Atlantic Division opponents.
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.
In the first of four meetings between the cross-state rivals, the Panthers used their fifth-ranked power play to grab the lead on their second man advantage after defenseman Nick Perbix's high-sticking infraction.
Early in the unit's setup, Matthew Tkachuk fed Ekblad high at the point. The defenseman one-timed a blast that Reinhart tipped in from the low slot at 15:51.
However, the home side found the equalizer when Paul collected a loose puck and popped it in with less than five seconds remaining.
On the Lightning's second power play of the second, Florida added to its league-leading numbers while on the penalty kill.
Greer found a rebound and flipped a backhander toward the near post, scoring his first career shorty at 10:28. Luostarinen sprinted away by himself 42 seconds later and ripped in his third career short-handed tally for a 3-1 lead.
In striking twice on the two penalty kills in the second, Florida denied a single shot on goal by Tampa Bay's No. 3-ranked power-play unit.
Point gave the Lightning momentum by moving his point streak to eight games, deking Knight 3:26 into the third to make it 3-2.
However, Reinhart's empty-netter at 19:29, his team-leading 22nd goal, iced the win.
