It’s déjà vu in all the worst ways for the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. After being defeated in five games by the Florida Panthers in 2024, the exact same thing happened on Wednesday night, with the Panthers once again winning the Battle of Florida in just five contests in Round 1.
Although the Bolts were the premier regular-season team, finishing second in the Atlantic Division and earning home ice advantage over the third-seeded Cats, they lost all three games at Amalie Arena. And after winning a ridiculous 11 of 12 postseason series between 2020-22 — and capturing two Stanley Cups in the process — the Lightning have now failed to make it out of the first round in three consecutive campaigns.
And there is no shortage of blame to go around. But before breaking it down, it’s worth mentioning that the Panthers are turning into what the Lightning were a couple of years ago: an unbeatable playoff behemoth. Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said so himself after Game 5. After getting swept by Tampa in the 2022 second round, Florida has won eight of its last nine playoff matchups, marching to two championship series and capturing the franchise’s inaugural title last year.
This was a hard-fought series between two excellent teams, but in the end, the Lightning just aren’t as deep as the Panthers and not as effective as they once were in the postseason. Here’s why Tampa’s goal of a third Stanley Cup in six seasons fell well short in 2025.
Nikita Kucherov doesn’t have a goal in his last 15 playoff games
To win a series against a team as deep defensively as the Panthers are, your best players need to be your best players. Jake Guentzel was the team’s premier forward, recording three goals and six points in just five games. But Nikita Kucherov, who is fresh off his second straight year leading the league in scoring, just couldn’t solve Florida’s system.
Somehow, unbelievably, Kucherov doesn’t have a playoff goal in 15 games. He’s been held scoreless in 10 straight postseason tilts against Florida, and hasn’t scored in the playoffs since Game 1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2023 — a series Tampa Bay would lose in six games. This is one of the greatest NHL players of the last two-and-a-half decades, and he was just named a Hart Trophy finalist once again on Thursday.
But this disappearing act is hard to understand for a player who led the entire postseason in scoring in 2020 and again in 2021. Kucherov is the crown jewel on the Lightning’s roster, and if he isn’t producing prolifically — and considering the depth is not what it once was — that’s a huge problem.
Lightning’s powerplay was absolutely atrocious
Kucherov failing to score was devastating for Tampa Bay in this series, and it was part of a broader issue with the offense. The powerplay came into Game 5 0-for-15, and ended up scoring twice in a losing effort on Wednesday night. Again, the Panthers deserve a ton of credit for their excellent penalty kill — and Sergei Bobrovsky remains terrific between the pipes.
Still, it’s unacceptable. The Lightning scored more goals than any other team in 2024-25, and had the league’s fifth best powerplay at a scorching 25.9 percent success rate. No team is going to go deep with a powerplay as futile as Tampa’s was in this series, and considering it’s led by Kucherov, Guentzel, Brayden Point and Victor Hedman, it’s a head-scratcher. It seemed like they just kept setting up one-timers from the point, and were unable to get any kind of high-danger chances in front of Bobrovsky for most of the series.
Anthony Cirelli, Yanni Gourde and Brandon Hagel failed to make a difference
Along with Kucherov’s futility and the powerplay’s mighty struggles, the Lightning’s depth failed to match the Panthers. Florida’s third line of Eetu Luostarinen, Brad Marchand and Anton Lundell combined for nine points in Game 5 alone. Three of Tampa’s most important pieces in Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel and Yanni Gourde combined for two — in the entire series.
Hagel missing two games with injury was brutal considering he amassed his first 90-point season in 2024-25. But Cirelli and Gourde just needed to be more effective offensively, and the same goes for Conor Geekie (one assist) and Mitchell Chaffee (one goal). The fact that Gage Goncalves outscored everyone except Kucherov and Guentzel in the series is concerning.
At the same time, Sam Reinhart led the Panthers with six points in five games, while the following players were all point-per-game in the series: Matthew Tkachuk, Sasha Barkov, Sam Bennett, Anton Lundell and Luostarinen. Florida’s depth was just so much more impactful than Tampa Bay’s, and that was a huge reason why it only took five games to decide a winner in the Battle of Florida.
Andrei Vasilevskiy failed to outduel Sergei Bobrovsky
Finally, both Andrei Vasilevskiy and Bobrovsky have proven they are all-world goaltenders who can backstop a franchise to a Stanley Cup. Between the two of them, they’ve played in five Stanley Cup Finals in the last five years, which is ridiculous.
It’s hard to blame Vasilevskiy too much this time around, as he played well for the most part. But he won the Conn Smythe Trophy back in 2021 after putting together a truly ridiculous 1.90 goals-against average and .937 save percentage. In this series, he had a 3.27 GAA and .872 SV%. He gave up a couple of weak goals, and was unable to steal a game when Tampa needed it most.
At the other end, Bobrovsky earned a shutout in Game 2 and managed a 2.21 GAA and .901 SV%. He arguably had a better team in front of him, but he was the better of the two Russians in this series.
Although the Lightning would probably have been the favorites against any of the other six Eastern Conference teams, this is a Panthers roster that is built to win — just as Tampa’s was during their dynasty in the early 2020s. The torch has been passed, and it’s hard to argue that Florida doesn’t have the best chance of any team remaining — in either conference — to win back-to-back Stanley Cups.
For Cooper and the Lightning, it’s back to the drawing board after a third consecutive truly disappointing playoff showing.
