The Florida Panthers went on the road and outplayed the Tampa Bay Lightning, but could not build on a 1-0 lead and eventually lost the game 2-1 in a shootout.
Jacob MacDonald, the feel good story of training camp, opened the scoring 5:58 into first game, lighting the lamp on the first shot of his NHL debut. Vincent Trocheck worked his way down the right side, fending off Victor Hedman in the process, to find MacDonald open in the left circle and he beat Andrei Vasilveskiy five hole.