Struggles In South Florida Continue

SUNRISE - The Lightning continue to seek a new spin on their personal house of horrors.

But the demons inside the BankAtlantic Center keep popping up to wreak havoc on Tampa Bay, which dropped its first game of the season in convincing fashion, 6-4 to the Florida Panthers on Saturday night.

The loss dropped the Lightning to 1-6-2 in their past nine games at Florida, where they are winless in the past three visits and 2-8-2 in the past three-plus seasons. In the past four games at Sunrise, Tampa Bay has allowed four goals, five goals, six goals and five goals, respectively.

Tomas Vokoun stopped 40 shots for the Panthers, and Nathan Horton and Ruslan Salei gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead before Tampa Bay could settle into a line flow with two early power-play chances; Florida converted on one and scored just after the second expired.

The numbers are even worse for goaltender Johan Holmqvist at the BankAtlantic Center. In five career starts at Florida during the past season-plus, Holmqvist is 1-1-1 with a 5.22 goals-against average and .832 save percentage, having allowed 18 goals on 107 shots. Holmqvist was replaced by Marc Denis on Saturday following 22 minutes after allowing four goals on 14 shots.

'We just didn't have a good start like we talked about, the first shot goes in and ...' Holmqvist said. 'I don't know, it wasn't a good game from us. ... As a goaltender you want to stop the puck, you have to step up as a goalie and I didn't do that.'

It started bad for Tampa Bay and got worse after Jason Ward was whistled for hooking 1:41 into the game. With a delayed penalty call on Filip Kuba, Horton collected a loose puck and fired a wrist shot past Holmqvist 2:33 into the game on Florida's first shot.

Six seconds after Kuba came out of the box, Salei fired home a shot that deflected off Lightning defenseman Mike Lundin at 4:39 for the 2-0 lead. With the early power plays, Florida had a 6-1 shot advantage and two-goal lead five minutes into the game.

Vinny Lecavalier had a chance to cut the lead in half on a short-handed breakaway, but Vokoun made a blocker save with 1:21 left in the first period, the third breakaway by Lecavalier in the past two games foiled by the Panthers.

Less than a minute after, Brad Lukowich blew a tire at the Florida blue line, leading to a two-on-one break. Lundin floated to the puck carrier, Horton, allowing Stephen Weiss to hit an open net with 1:03 to go in the first period.

'We came out kind of flat for whatever reason and then we kind of left Homer out to dry there,' defenseman Shane O'Brien said. 'We get behind and it's tough to come back in this league like that.'

After falling behind 4-0, Tampa Bay mounted a comeback. Andre Roy made it 4-1 early in the second. Jozef Stumpel put the Panthers ahead 5-1 with a five-on-three power-play goal, but the Lightning answered with three goals in a 2:53 span midway through the third - two by Vinny Prospal and one by Jan Hlavac - to cut the deficit to one.

But more penalty trouble foiled the comeback as Olli Jokinen scored the Panthers' second five-on-three goal of the final period to reclaim the two-goal advantage.

'A concern of mine is our discipline, it's frustrating,' Lightning coach John Tortorella said. 'A key part to our club the past couple of years here has been our discipline and then losing it at key times tonight. ...

'We work our tails off to get back in it and it's a parade to the penalty box.'