It\u2019s time for the regular season after the Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up the 2026 exhibition schedule on Saturday with a 3-2 preseason shootout victory over the Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Rautiainen scored a slick goal to claim the win in the third round of the shootout, and the Lightning finished the preseason with a 2-1-1 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always fun to end it on a winning note, there\u2019s no doubt,\u201d head coach Jon Cooper said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s probably a lot of teams in the league that were playing their lineups, and tonight was two teams that were playing guys that were fighting to make the team, so I think that added a little bit more juice to the game. It was a lot of fun to be a part of and a pretty cool shootout with Rauts doing what he did and to win it. It was a great ending, but now it\u2019s time to turn the page and get ready for opening night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young forward Lucas Mercuri got his first appearance of the preseason and made an immediate impact by scoring the 1-0 goal for the Lightning.\u00a0The 24-year-old center found open ice at the bottom of the left circle, where Nick Abruzzese fed him a pass. Mercuri roofed the shot over Akira Schmid\u2019s glove 8:50 into the game.<\/p>\n
Saturday marked Mercuri\u2019s preseason debut after he worked his way back from injury to open camp. He finished with the goal, three hits and went 6-for-8 in the faceoff circle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to get it early,\u201d Mercuri said. \u201cWhat a play by Z and Vieler just holding the puck along the wall. It\u2019s just outmuscling the guy, outworking them and that\u2019s what we\u2019re about here so it\u2019s been good. It was nice to get one in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida evened the score in the closing minutes of the first period with Sandis Vilmanis\u2019 shot from the right hashmark after a turnover and then took the lead on a point shot by defenseman Matvei Shuravin 2:13 into the second period.<\/p>\n
Another Lightning prospect tied the game in the third period, this time Rautiainen. While on the power play, Rautiainen one-timed home a Gage Goncalves pass at the left post with 7:02 left in the game to make it 2-2.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old forward then silenced the crowd by winning the game in the third round of the shootout, kicking the puck to himself and firing a goal inside the left post.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually I\u2019ve never done that,\u201d Rautiainen said of the winning deke. \u201cI tried to test it and it went in. I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay forward Jeff Viel had an assist for the visitors and got involved further with a fight against Florida\u2019s Sam Lafferty. Gage Goncalves and Conor Geekie also had assists for Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinished on a good note,\u201d Viel said of the preseason finale. \u201cIt\u2019s always nice to get the win, and I thought we played a good 60 (minutes) today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Crozier\u2019s 25:59 led Tampa Bay in ice time, and goalie Dennis Hildeby posted 20 saves in his first preseason win. The Lightning were particularly strong in the faceoff circle as a team, winning 60% of the draws. Sam O\u2019Reilly led the way with 10 faceoff wins.<\/p>\n
The preseason is officially over. The Lightning open the 2026-27 season this Thursday with a 7 p.m. visit to play the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the most competitive camp we\u2019ve had in quite some time since I\u2019ve been here, and it was a pleasure to be around all the kids and the guys that aren\u2019t with us anymore,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThis was a different camp, and it\u2019s impressive some of the players that Julien and our scouting staff have brought in here without wheeling around some high picks that we haven\u2019t had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benjamin\u2019s Three Stars:<\/p>\n
1. Benjamin Rautiainen, TBL (Goal, SO winner)<\/p>\n
2. Lucas Mercuri, TBL (Goal)<\/p>\n
3. Jeff Viel, TBL (Assist, fight)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time for the regular season after the Tampa Bay Lightning wrapped up the 2026 exhibition schedule on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-411722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}