CARTER VERHAEGHE

The Florida Panthers have matched the best 11-game start in NHL history.

Alex Killorn scored a pair of second-period goals and the Tampa Bay Lightning rebounded from its first postseason loss to rout the Florida Panthers 6-2 and take a commanding 3-1 lead in the first-round Central Division playoff matchup.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 32 shots, Steven Stamkos and Ondrej Palat had first-period goals and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Florida Panthers 3-1 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 lead in their Central Division first-round playoff series.

Nikita Kucherov scored two power-play goals in his first appearance of the season, and Blake Coleman scored a short-handed goal. Point tied it at 4 with seven minutes to go on his power-play goal and then got the winner when he skated in on a breakaway and backhanded the puck past Bobrovsky. The Lightning took a 1-0 lead on Coleman’s short-handed goal 16 seconds later. The Panthers tied it at 1 on Barkov’s power-play goal at 9:41, and Verhaeghe put them ahead with 3:29 left in the first. The second period ended with a fighting scrum in front of the Tampa Bay net.

Brayden Point scored two late goals, including the game-winner with 1:14 left in the third period, to lift the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning over the Florida Panthers 5-4 to take Game 1 of their playoff series.

The Lightning opened the game with the first all-Black line in NHL history -- Mathieu Joseph, Gemel Smith and Daniel Walcott. The Panthers had the best point percentage in team history, best home record and best road record. COOPER’S MARKThis was the eighth full season on the Tampa Bay bench for Lightning coach Jon Cooper. He is 42 games shy of tying Doug Jarvis’ NHL record. Tampa Bay had five players appear in all 56 games -- Joseph, Brayden Point, Mikhail Sergachev, Yanni Gourde and Alex Killorn.

Chris Driedger stopped 30 shots to record his third shutout of the season, Juho Lammikko scored a short-handed goal, and the Florida Panthers secured home-ice advantage for the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the regular season finale for both clubs.

Florida’s 6-1-2 start through nine games is the second-best in franchise history, topped only by the 6-0-3 record to open the 1996-97 season. “We've been consistent in most games," Florida coach Joel Quenneville said. Starting poorly, however, has pretty much snuffed out some Panthers seasons before they even started. The five Florida teams that went to the playoffs — 1995-96, 1996-97, 1999-2000, 2011-12 and 2015-16 — averaged 12 standings points through the season’s first nine games. There’s obviously a long way to go, but the Panthers finally have the start they wanted.

The triumph of winning the NHL championship in a bubble was certainly no less sweet for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He played 964 regular-season and 137 playoff games to get to this point, losing in the final twice before. Tampa Bay had Point and No. Coach Jon Cooper thought the attitude needed to change from wanting to beat every opponent 9-0 because that’s not realistic in playoff hockey. ... Alexander Volkov made his NHL playoff debut for Tampa Bay, which also saw Patrick Maroon become just the eighth player to win the Cup in back-to-back seasons with different teams (St. Louis).