Photo credit: Jeff Romance-Imagn Images
Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning turned Sunrise into a penalty-minutes grind, with power plays and turnovers stealing the script.
Saturday felt less like a regular-season game and more like a grievance hearing on skates. The clubs stacked 136 penalty minutes, 87 on Tampa Bay, and Florida slid to 20-15-2 without a steady five-on-five pulse.
Eetu Luostarinen struck first in the slot, and Amerant Bank Arena sounded ready for a typical Panthers push. But the game quickly flipped from hockey to special-teams survival. Every whistle just cranked the temperature higher.
Florida Panthers power play fuels rivalry chaos
With 1:30 left in the second, things finally spilled over. Jake Guentzel tagged A.J. Greer with a punch, and after the whistle Anthony Cirelli drove a cross-check into Greer, which set off a full-on multi-player scrum.
The third period had another flashpoint. Scott Sabourin took a hard slash at Niko Mikkola, then tried to square up with Gustav Forsling, and the officials handed him 14 penalty minutes for the sequence.
Kunin deserves credit for stepping up against Douglas. Facing a significant size disadvantage of nearly nine inches, he didn't back down, stayed competitive throughout the exchange, and showed plenty of grit in the process.
«He (Luke Kunin) gives it everything every shift. He gives his whole heart out there. That fires up the rest of the team.» - Gustav Forsling
"Good on him (Luke Kunin). That's a different tale of the tape there, but not of the heart. Good for him." - Paul Maurice
Florida went 1 for 11 on the power play and still gave up a short-handed goal, a brutal trade in this matchup. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 21 shots, while Andrei Vasilevskiy turned aside 24.
The Panthers' penalty kill actually held its ground, because Tampa Bay finished 0-for-6 with the extra attacker. That's why the missed chances on Florida's own man-advantages sting even more.
The penalties were a story all on their own, 45 called and Tampa Bay's bench living in the box.
Even when Florida drew a four-minute advantage late, the looks arrived one at a time instead of in waves. The Lightning kill clogged the middle, and the Panthers didn't win enough recoveries below the dots.
When the game finally settled at five-on-five, Florida's forecheck created pressure but too many clean exits slipped by. Against Tampa Bay, you can't feed rush chances with careless changes or soft clears.
The next chapter comes Feb. 5 in Tampa, and discipline plus a sharper power play has to lead the way.