Some games deserve a little deeper introspection than others. Tonight the breakdown of the game is pretty simple. The Tampa Bay Lightning allowed two shorthanded goals on the same power play and lost 4-2 to the Florida Panthers. That’s it. This is literally the ball game. No further discussion is required. See you in the morning!

Just kidding.

However, the game’s turning point came midway through the second period when Uvis Balinskis sat in the Florida penalty box for interference with the score tied at 1-1. First, Nikita Kucherov turned the puck over at the Florida blueline, leading to a two-on-one shorthanded breakaway that saw Andrei Vasilevskiy make the first stop, but the puck got stuck in front of the goal crease and AJ Greer was able to get the Backhand play it past Vasilevskiy. Forty seconds later, Eetu Luostarinen took the puck from Anthony Cirelli at center ice and cleanly beat Vasilevskiy, who finished the game with 22 saves.

That made it 3-1, and despite a decent third period from the Bolts, they were never able to overcome the deficit. They created a few chances in the final period, but Knight, who finished the night with 19 saves, was up to the task of protecting the lead.

“We let those two goals come to us,” Brayden Point said after the game. Point would bring them within one goal with his 22nd goal of the season when he got ahead of Spencer Knight and pushed the puck around him. That would be the closest score as Sam Reinhart sank a missed shot with 30 seconds left to put the game on ice.

The teams traded goals in the first half, with Reinhart blocking a point shot from Aaron Ekblad on the Panthers’ first power play of the game. With just five seconds left, Nick Paul equalized when Victor Hedman caught him with a diagonal slap pass. Paul worked the puck around Knight to score his 8th goal of the season.

It’s not often that the Lightning outscore a team 2-0 at 5-on-5 and don’t come out on top, but special teams goals count just as much as even-strength goals, and the Panthers won the battle the special teams quite clearly. If there’s one positive to take away from this game, it’s that the Bolts played evenly with the Panthers, and they can build on that for their next matchup.

“Obviously you don’t play the same team twice in a row unless it’s playoffs. So it’s a good situation for us to respond to that and win boldly like they did tonight. “So it’s good for us to have that adversity here before halftime,” Ryan McDonagh said.

They’ll have to put an end to this quickly as the two teams face off again on Monday evening in Sunrise. Ryan McDonagh made a promise when speaking to the press after the defeat:

“We will feel better tomorrow evening”

The goals

Sam Reinhart (Aaron Ekblad, Mathew Tkachuk) Power Play, 1-0 Panthers

Nick Paul (Victor Hedman, Darren Raddysh) 1-1

AJ Greer (Tomas Nosek) outnumbered, 2:1 Panthers

Eetu Luostarinen (unassisted) outnumbered, 3:1 Panthers

Brayden Point (Jake Guentzel, Darren Raddysh) 3-2 Panthers

Sam Reinhart (Anton Lundell, Aleksander Barkov) Empty-Net, 4-2 Panthers

The charts