Panthers can't Weather the Lightning's Storm.

By Jake Ricker

The Lightning took on the Panthers in a very tightly contested matchup. Thanks to the Lightning stars, the Bolts took down the panthers by a final score of 4-1 and picked up another two points. Here are four things we noticed from the game.

Jersey Matchup

Ok, this doesn't relate to gameplay, but we just had to mention it. Both the Lightning and Panthers wore their reverse retro jerseys for this game. And it looked amazing. While a lot of people don't love the Bolts storm jersey(even though they are wrong), the Panthers have one of the more popular jerseys. You put them together, though, and you have one of the better jerseys matchups we have ever seen.

Anthony Cirelli

Cirelli has now played in 4 games since returning from injury, and he has looked fantastic. Cirelli has tallied 4 assists as well but, more importantly, given life to the bottom 6. Cirelli has done a fantastic job working down low to win puck battles. This is exactly what he did on the Maroon goal to open the scoring. Cirelli fought off multiple Panthers defenders and then centered it to a waiting Maroon.

Not to mention Cirelli is also another huge part of the penalty kill. Even though the PK has not struggled in Cirelli's absence, it is a big boost to have him back. At the end of the day, it is very nice to have 71 back in the lineup, and he is already making an impact.

Shots on Shots

The Lightning have been shooting a lot lately, as they finished with ___ shots on goal. More importantly, these shots have created a lot more momentum for the Lightning and just better chances as they tend to be in the offensive zone more because of it. While it didn't turn into a lot of goals against the Panthers, it certainly has given the offense more confidence in these last few games.

Braydon Point and Steven Stamkos

Point has been on a hot streak and stayed hot in this game. He finished this game with one goal and 5 shots, but his quick pace has really helped the Lightning control recent games. Points goal was a simple but good one. After Kucherov was able to spin around and get the puck to Point, he picked his spot and put into the back of the net.

We also need to mention the Captian, who is now four goals away from 500 and is on a 13-game point streak. Stamkos currently owns the franchise record point steak at 18 games. While Stamkos didn't have a fantastic game, we have to mention his goal, where we glided in all alone and beat Bobrovsky like it was nothing.

Three Stars

1. Vasilevskiy (24SV)

2. Point (1G)

3. Foote (2A)

The Lightning's next game will be against the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday, December 13th, at 7 PM ET.

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