SUNRISE, Fla.- (AP) â Chris Driedger stopped 30 shots to record his third shutout of the season, Juho Lammikko scored a short-handed goal, and the Florida Panthers secured home-ice advantage for the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the regular season finale for both clubs on Monday night.
Driedger made his first start in six games.
âI kind of just show up ⦠the guys played fantastic defensively tonight,â Driedger said. âI feel good. I was seeing the puck. Couple of breakaways I just felt solid on. I had good depth. But overall, just an incredible effort by the guys.â
Defending champion Lightning make NHL history by starting an all-black forward line as Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper says he hopes it will become the norm
The Tampa Bay Lightning started three black forwards in their regular-season finale on Monday night, a rarity in NHL history, if not an absolute first
Daniel Walcott, Mathieu Joseph and Gemel Smith played together against Florida - likely the first time three black forwards were ever on the same line
Roughly 3 percent of NHL players are black, even though hockey and its teams have increased efforts in recent years to add to diversity within the sport
Bantering Points: 5/11/21
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Tampa Bay Lightning lose to Florida Panthers, 4-0
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Photo by Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images
Chris Driedger posted a 30-save shutout and four different Florida Panthers scored as they beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-0 in the final game of the season. MacKenzie Weegar, Juho Lammikko, Carter Verhaeghe, and Alex Wennberg scored against Andre Vasilevskiy, who had 26 saves on 30 shots in the loss.
Overshadowing the loss was the NHL debut of one of the most popular players in Syracuse Crunch history, Daniel Walcott. The 27-year-old forward played 10:03, dolled out 7 hits, fired one shot on goal, and a had a fight. Yup, that sounds like a Daniel Walcott night.
A rarity: Tampa Bay Lightning start all-Black forward line By Associated Press AP
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SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) Daniel Walcott was already excited to be in his first NHL game. He got even more excited when he got to see how his debut would happen.
The Tampa Bay Lightning started three Black forwards in their regular-season finale against the Florida Panthers on Monday night, a rarity in NHL history if not an absolute first. Walcott, Mathieu Joseph and Gemel Smith were out together for the opening face-off and didn’t know they would be starting together until just minutes before game time.