Lightning Strikes In Florida

FLORIDA
The Florida Panthers hosted the Tampa Bay Lightning who stormed into town on a 5 game winning streak and when all was said and done OT was needed and Lightning struck.

This game had two of the hottest teams in the league against each other and the game lived up to its hype as this was one of the most entertaining games of the season.

The Panthers Kim Johnsson got Florida off to a good start when he scored his 7th of the season at 1:53 to give his team a 1-0 lead. Just :16 seconds later Tampa Bays Ossi Vaananen went to the box for charging. The Panthers were unable to take advantage of the man advantage but the lightning's Matt Cullen broke up a pass and dished it to Daniel Cleary who was racing down the ice with Steve Sullivan on a two on none and Jamie Storr had no chance when Cleary passed the puck over to Sullivan who tapped it into the open net for his 13th of the year and while short handed at 2:35. After 20 minutes the teams were notched at 1.

Robert Svehla gave the Lightning the lead at 13:54 of the second scoring his 5th of the year. The Panthers power play has improved lately and it struck again tonight. Ivan Novoseltsev scored his team leading 25th goal of the year and 4th power play goal at 17:42 to tie the game at 2 apiece.

The Lightning stormed the Panthers in the third period out shooting them 10-4 and put the Cats on the defensive for the majority of the period. Panther goalie Jamie Storr was there and continually frustrated Tampa as he kept his team in the game stopping everything Tampa threw at him. After 60 minutes of play nothing was decided and overtime was needed.

Tampa Bay's Steve Sullivan scored his second of the game and the game winner at 2:03 of the extra frame and extended the Bolts winning streak to 6 games and handing the Panthers their second loss in 4 games.

The Panthers will travell to Nashville to play the Campbell Conference leading Predators.