Tkachuk stars in his return by scoring twice as the Panthers top Lightning 6-2 in series opener

TAMPA Fla AP Matthew Tkachuk had two power-play goals and an assist in his first competition after a two-month absence and the Florida Panthers opened defense of their Stanley Cup title with a - win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night in the first battle of the teams first-round playoff series Nate Schmidt scored on a power play and finished with two goals and Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart each added a goal and an assist for the Panthers Sergei Bobrovsky made saves Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point scored for Tampa Bay Andrei Vasilevskiy had stops The Lightning played the final without center Anthony Cirelli There was no immediate word why the -year-old center was out The teams meet for Challenge of the best-of-seven series on Thursday at Amalie Arena Tkachuk was playing for the first time in more than two months after dealing with a lower-body injury He scored twice in the second period Those two goals put Florida up - the second goal for the Panthers in a -second span and the next one pushing the lead to - midway through the second period Bennett had opened the scoring at of the first batting a puck out of the air Guentzel responded for Tampa Bay scoring with a man advantage at The Panthers regained the lead when Reinhart tipped in a shot bu Dmitry Kulikov with seconds remainin the first The Panthers broke the event open early in the second when Schmidt scored on a rebound at Tampa Bay lost a challenge for goaltender interference on the play and Tkahchuk scored his first on the ensuing power play seconds later and added a second at Point cut the deficit to - at of the second Schmidt added Florida s third power-play goal off a pass from Tkachuk at of the third period https apnews com hub nhl Source