After racking up four of six points on a three game road trip to start the season, the Tampa Bay Lightning returned to the Tampa Bay Times Forum with a bang on Thursday night. In front of 19,204 happy fans, the Lightning soundly defeated the Florida Panthers 7-2 and moved their season record to 3-1-0.

Buoyed by Steven Stamkos’s first hat-trick of the season, the Lightning simply dominated the Panthers from start to finish. The offensive outburst that took place on Thursday highlights the fact that this Lightning team is hard to stop when things are going right. Since falling to the Bruins on opening night, the Lightning have filed away three straight victories. Unlike the first two victories, however, Thursday’s was a thing of beauty. In addition to great offensive performances from key contributors, the Lightning received stellar goaltending from Ben Bishop and solid defensive play from everyone on the backend. The victory was very close to perfect.

Lightning captain Martin St. Louis opened the scoring roughly eight minutes into the contest with his second of the season when he sent home a great cross-crease pass from Steven Stamkos. After some quick work on the cycle from Teddy Purcell, Stamkos found Marty wide open beside Jacob Markstrom; from there, number twenty-six didn’t make a mistake.

The Lightning’s opening frame offensive didn’t end there. At the tail end of a Panthers power-play just under fourteen minutes into the first period, Victor Hedman sprung St. Louis and Stamkos on an odd-man rush. With Stamkos heading hard towards the net, St. Louis swung the puck in his direction; Stamkos tipped the puck past Markstrom to double the Lightning lead.

Just under one minute into the second frame, Brad Boyes cut the Panthers’ deficit in half when he found a rebound beside Ben Bishop and put the puck past the Lightning tender. Quick to stifle any Panthers momentum, the Lightning fought right back. Before the second period came to an end, Stamkos notched his second of the night and Ondrej Palat tallied his first of the year. With that, the Lightning held a 4-1 lead heading into the third period.

If there’s one young player on the Florida Panthers’ roster who has haunted the Lightning since he entered the league, it’s Jonathan Huberdeau. After cutting through the Bolts’ defense and breaking in alone, Huberdeau made a very slick move and slid the puck past Bishop to make the score 4-2. That was as close as the Panthers would get, as Valtteri Filppula scored twice before Stamkos added his third of the night.

Hockey fans near and far knew that the Lightning’s offense would break out at some point. When the Lightning needed Steven Stamkos to have a big night, he stepped up with a hat trick. When the Lightning needed secondary scoring, Valtteri Filppula notched two goals. On nights when the Lightning get offensive production and goaltending like they did on Thursday, they’ll be a tough group of guys to beat.

The Lightning’s next contest will take place on Saturday night at the Forum against the Pittsburgh Penguins. With three straight wins in the books, the guys will be looking to add a fourth against one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams.

As always, thanks for reading.

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