Brayden Point’s goal, 2 assists help Lightning beat Panthers 5-1

TAMPA Fla AP Brayden Point had a goal and two assists to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a - success against the Florida Panthers on Thursday Nikita Kucherov had a goal and an assists and Yanni Gourde added two assists Conor Geekie Jake Guentzel and Darren Raddysh also scored for Tampa Bay Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped shots Brad Marchand scored for Florida which finished its regular season schedule Vitek Vanecek finished with saves The teams will meet in the opening round of the playoffs starting this weekend Tampa Bay scored three goals in the first period with Point scoring into the match Geekie made it - with left before Guentzel scored shorthanded with to play in the period Kucherov made it - almost five minutes into the second but Marchand answered about a minute later Raddysh scored a -on- power play goal with to play moments after Florida s Jesse Puljujarvi was assessed a match penalty for an illegal check to the head to Mitchell Chaffee Takeaways Panthers Florida played without regulars Aleksander Barkov Sam Reinhart Gustav Forsling Anton Lundell and A J Greer Marchand s goal is his second since joining the Panthers Lightning Geekie has two goals in two games since being recalled from AHL Syracuse Victor Hedman recorded his fourth -assisst season Anthony Cirelli recorded his rd career shorthanded point Key moment Tampa Bay was up - late in the first period when Brandon Hagel took a double-minor to negate a Lightning power play But seven seconds into the Florida power play Cirelli won a puck battle against Seth Jones and fed Guentzel in front for a short-handed goal to make it - Key stat Kucherov reached the -point mark for the second consecutive season and third time in his career to become just the th player in NHL history with three-or-more seasons of at least points Up Next The Lightning finish the regular season at the New York Rangers on Thursday while the Panthers await Event of their opening-round series against Tampa Bay