As the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning pause before doing battle in the postseason for the fourth time in five years, let’s take a look back at the regular season series between the two Sunshine State clubs, which ended a split with each team winning once at home and once on the road.
Game 1: Panthers 4, Lightning 2
The season series began with a back-to-back on December 22 at Amalie Arena. Sam Reinhart opened and closed the scoring for the Panthers in an impressive 4-2 win that saw the visiting Cats strike thrice on special teams at Amalie Arena.
Florida opened the scoring on their second power-play opportunity of the evening. Moving the puck from high to low, Aleksander Barkov passed to Matthew Tkachuk and he found a seam to feed back out to Aaron Ekblad. Ekblad one-timed the pass and Reinhart was able to brush the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy at the 15:51 mark of the first period.
Unfortunately, the Cats got outworked at the end of the frame and yielded at 19:55. The Lightning won the puck in the right corner and worked it up the boards to Darren Raddysh, who crossed to Victor Hedman. Hedman, who was likely looking shot before A.J. Greer took a tumble, found Nick Paul wide-open in front of Spencer Knight, and he sent the puck through his five-hole after the goalie desperately tried to adjust the back door pass.
After tilting the ice in their favor. the Panthers would break the game open midway through the second, with Uvis Balinskis off serving an interference minor, by scoring twice on the same penalty kill.
First, Greer stripped Nikita Kucherov at the blue line and led a two-on-one rush up ice. Greer threaded a pass into the slot to Tomas Nosek and he was able to take the puck off his skate and put a shot on Vasilevskiy that was denied. Greer was able to get to the tantalizing rebound and just slip it past Vasilevskiy’s glove at 10:28.
Forty-two seconds later, Eetu Luostarinen dispossessed Anthony Cirelli of the puck at center ice and broke in on Vasilevskiy and cleanly beat him stick-side by roofing a perfectly-placed wrister. Eetu, Vasy!
The Lightning pulled one back 3:26 into third when Dmitry Kulikov got caught out of position and Jake Guentzel sprung Brayden Point into empty space down the left side. Point cut in front of Knight and easily deposited the puck behind him. Raddysh drew the second helper on Point’s 22nd of the season.
The Panthers shook off the goal and continued to clamp down on the Lightning and Reinhart eventually matched Point with his 22nd marker, scoring into an empty net to clinch it with 31 seconds left in regulation, with the assists going to Anton Lundell and Barkov.
After an evenly played opening frame, the Panthers went to playoff mode and held the Lightning to 11 shots the rest of the way, making things relatively easy for Knight, who finished with 19 saves to collect his sixth win, and snap Tampa Bay’s four-game winning streak.
Game 2: Lightning 4, Panthers 0
The 174th meeting between the two clubs didn’t go so well as the Panthers surrendered three first period goals and couldn’t solve journeyman Jonas Johansson in a frustrating 4-0 loss.
Nikita Kucherov, who was stopped on a breakaway on his first shift of his game, opened the scoring by roofing a backhand shot on Sergei Bobrovsky at the 6:56 mark. The goal came after Anthony Cirelli picked off Dmitry Kulikov down low and fed back to Victor Hedman, who sent Kucherov in alone on Bobrovsky.
The Lightning added a four-on-four goal 2:24 later with A.J. Greer and Emil Lilleberg off for roughing. After taking an outlet pass from Hedman, Brandon Hagel gained the zone and dropped to Jake Guentzel and he pumped a shot past Bobrovsky from the high slot.
With Tampa Bay on a man-advantage, Bobrovsky would make a nice pad save on Mitchell Chaffee’s redirection of Cirelli’s wrister from the right point. Unfortunately, the rebound went right back to Chaffee and he took the puck off his skate and fired it home at the 16:24 mark. Nick Paul picked up the secondary assist on Chaffee’s seventh, which came with Eetu Luostarinen serving a slashing minor.
Shortly after Chaffee’s goal, Kucherov went knee-first into Matthew Tkachuk’s knee, sending Florida’s superstar and spiritual leader to the dressing room and pushing what was already a psychical contest to the next level. Thankfully, Tkachuk would return early in the second period.
The teams would combine for 63 penalty minutes and the Panthers would finish with 32 hits, many of them of the punishing variety.
Despite looking a bit weary and a little off in the crispness department, the Cats, who led 24-14 in scoring chances at 5-on-5, made former Panther Johansson work for his 36-save shutout. Surprisingly, the towering 29-year-old was up to the task on this night.
I wouldn’t describe a lot of what the Cats put on Johansson as high-quality, but there were a few really good chances and they did crash the net a lot, it just wasn’t their night.
This game was lost in the first period and early in the second when Florida’s power play couldn’t cash in on the five-minute major that Kucherov received for kneeing Tkachuk (reduced to three by an Ekblad roughing) and subsequent penalties on Hedman and Erik Cernak in short succession.
The Panthers went 0-for-4 with man-advantage and surrendered a power-play goal, one at 4-on-4, and finally a shorthanded marker when Hagel found the empty net with the lone assist going to Cernak to complete the scoring.
Game 3: Panthers 2, Lightning 1
The teams reconvened in Sunrise on March 3 for meeting number three. Aleksander Barkov scored twice in the middle frame and Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves to lead the Florida Panthers to a 2-1, playoff-style win over the Lighting in the first game of the Seth Jones era.
After scoreless first period that saw Barkov hit the post, two penalties on Niko Mikkola killed off, and a huge Bobrovsky save on Mitchell Chaffee, Florida’s captain opened the scoring at the 9:02 mark when he collected a Lightning turnover near the blue line. Barkov spun away from Brayden Point, took a couple of strides into space opened up by a subtle Carter Verhaeghe pick, and fired a shot from just above the left circle that beat a slightly-screened Andrei Vasilevskiy.
A tripping call on J.J. Moser set the stage for Barkov’s second of the night at 15:16. Barkov won the post-penalty draw in the left circle back to Aaron Ekblad. The defenseman sent the puck over to Mackie Samoskevich, who fed Barkov in the middle of the ice and he snapped off a shot that Vasilevskiy’s glove could not react to.
The Lightning finally got on the board 2:07 into the third when Brayden Point curled out of the right corner and whipped a shot on goal that Bobrovsky kicked out. Unfortunately, the rebound went right back to Point and he was able to backhand the puck through Bobrovsky’s pads to crack the goose egg. Darren Raddysh and Jake Guentzel drew the helpers on Point’s 32nd goal.
Following a tremendous pad save by Bobrovsky on Ryan McDonagh’s shorthanded breakaway, Anton Lundell’s late tripping minor gave Tampa Bay a last-gasp, 6-on-4 opportunity. Despite having a mere nine ticks remaining on the clock to work with, Anthony Cirelli won the faceoff, allowing the visitors to get Victor Hedman a clean look, but the towering defenseman’s shot rang off the right post and stayed out, giving the Cats a hard-fought victory which ended their hated rival’s eight-game winning streak.
Game 4: Lightning 5, Panthers 1
The Panthers concluded the regular season with a thud, falling 5-1 to the Lightning at Amalie Arena.
Brayden Point scored a goal and added two assists and Art Ross-winner Nikita Kucherov had a goal and a helper for the black-clad Bolts, who despite the easy victory, had to settle for second place in the Atlantic Division.
An untimely tumble by Seth Jones allowed Anthony Cirelli to set up Jake Guentzel for a shorthanded strike with 1:51 remaining in the first period. That goal made it 3-0, and essentially ended any chance Florida had of winning what was a meaningless game for them.
Conor Geekie and Darren Raddysh also beat Vitek Vanecek, who finished with 21 saves. Raddysh’s goal came with the home team enjoying a 5-on-3 advantage, thanks to major penalty on Jesse Puljujärvi and a minor on Niko Mikkola.
Brad Marchand was the only Panther able to solve Andrei Vasilevskiy. After receiving a knifing lead pass from Carter Verhaeghe, Marchand chose to shoot on a 2-on-1 break with Sam Bennett, and put the puck just inside the near post 5:36 into the middle frame for his second goal with his new team. The second assist went to Matt Kiersted. It was his first NHL point since December 19, 2022.
Not much to say about this one, as the game unfolded pretty much as expected, given the Panthers were missing the likes of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell and Gustav Forsling. Point scored 1:32 in to put the Cats behind the eight-ball and then the goals from Geekie and Guentzel 2:44 apart late in the first deepened the hole.
So, there you have it. The Panthers and Lightning will begin their fifth postseason duel on Tuesday night in Tampa. The schedule is as follows:
Game 1 – Tuesday, April 22 | 8:30 p.m. | Amalie Arena
Game 2 – Thursday, April 24 | 6:30 p.m. (ET) | Amalie Arena
Game 3 – Saturday, April 26 | 1 p.m. (ET) | Amerant Bank Arena
Game 4 – Monday, April 28 | Time TBD | Amerant Bank Arena
*Game 5 – Wednesday, April 30 | Time TBD | Amalie Arena
*Game 6 – Friday, May 2 | Time TBD | Amerant Bank Arena
*Game 7 – Sunday, May 4 | Time TBD | Amalie Arena
