Mercuri starts it, Lightning finish the comeback in a 3-2 win over Florida

An early exchange set the tone

Tampa Bay struck first at 8:50 of the opening period when Mercuri beat Florida with a snap shot. Nick Abruzzese and Jeffrey Viel drew the assists, and the play gave the Lightning a clean reward for one of the few early openings in a game that stayed tight almost all the way through.

Florida answered before the intermission. Vilmanis tied it at 17:58 of the first on a wrist shot, with Kai Schwindt collecting the lone assist. That equalizer mattered because it reset the night before the Panthers nudged in front in the second period, forcing Tampa Bay to chase the game again.

The Lightning eventually found that answer in the third, then carried the comeback over the line in the fifth period. Even without the later scoring details, the shape of the result is clear enough: Florida did the work to turn an early deficit into a lead, but Tampa Bay owned the final reply.

The dots, not the power play, separated them

In a game without much special-teams damage, faceoffs became one of the clearest differences. Tampa Bay won 71.4 per cent of its draws, finishing with 15 faceoff wins to Florida’s six. That is a huge edge in any one-goal game, and it gave the Lightning more first touches when possession was there to be claimed.

Several Tampa Bay skaters drove that number. Sam O'Reilly went 6-for-7 on draws, Conor Geekie won three of five and Mercuri took both of his faceoffs successfully. Florida never found the same foothold in the circle. John Beecher won only two of nine, and while Vilmanis split his five draws respectably, the Panthers as a group spent too much of the night trying to recover the puck after the drop.

Special teams never rescued either side. Both clubs went 0-for-1 on the power play, and both finished with 17 penalty minutes. The physical side of the game was also essentially even at 17 hits apiece. Vilmanis and Garnet Hathaway delivered four hits each for Florida, while Zemgus Girgensons and Noah Steen had three apiece for Tampa Bay. With the teams so close in those areas, the faceoff gap stands out even more.

Our take: Tampa Bay survived its sloppier moments, Florida did not

Our take: Tampa Bay will gladly take the result, but the Lightning should not confuse a comeback win with a spotless performance. They were charged with 11 giveaways, more than double Florida’s five, and that is the kind of number that can undo a team even when it controls the circle. The positive for Tampa Bay is that it still found a way to recover from a second-period hole. Mercuri’s goal gave the night an early push, Abruzzese and Viel chipped in on the opening marker, and the club’s work on draws gave it a dependable route back into the game when the score tightened.

For Florida, the frustration is easier to identify. The Panthers did enough to overturn an early deficit and carried a 2-1 lead out of the second period, but they could not close the game from there. Our take: the first fix starts on faceoffs. Winning 28.6 per cent of draws makes every defensive shift longer and every offensive touch harder to start cleanly. Florida also recorded just one blocked shot to Tampa Bay’s four, another small number that fits the larger story of a team that was competitive but lost too many of the night’s details.

There were still useful individual signs for the Panthers. Vilmanis supplied the tying goal in the first and added a strong physical line, while Kai Schwindt contributed the assist on that equalizer. But this was the sort of game where a few repeatable habits decided the finish. Tampa Bay was better in the circle, answered after falling behind and kept the last word. In a 3-2 game that stretched beyond regulation, that was enough.

Scoring moments

1. 1st · 8:50

   Lucas Mercuri Goal (1) Snap Shot, assists: Nicholas Abruzzese (1), Jeff Viel (1)

2. 1st · 17:58

   Sandis Vilmanis Goal (2) Wrist Shot, assists: Kai Schwindt (2)