Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves, Matthew Tkachuk scored twice and the Florida Panthers beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 on Thursday night to take a 3-0 lead in the first-round playoff series. Brandon Montour, Sam Reinhart and Steven Lorentz also scored for the Panthers, who will seek a sweep Saturday night in Tampa. Tkachuk had a first-period goal and added an empty-netter with 32 seconds left. Steven Stamkos, Tyler Motte and Nicholas Paul scored for Tampa Bay, with Paul cutting it to 4-3 with 5:10 left. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots.
The New York Islanders‘ Ilya Sorokin got the start in Game 3 as a rested goalie seeking to give his team a fresh start after trailing the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0 in their opening-round series. But things turned rotten quickly for Sorokin. He gave up three goals on 14 shots before he was pulled 7:14 into the second period. Semyon Varlamov, who started the first two games of the series, stopped all eight shots he faced in relief, but it wasn’t enough: The Hurricanes defeated the Islanders 3-2 on Thursday, and New York now faces elimination Saturday afternoon at UBS Arena.