Tampa Bay prepared for a pushback from Florida in Game 4

It's the toughest one to win, a series-clinching game.
The Tampa Bay Lightning enter tonight's Game 4 matchup against the Florida Panthers with an opportunity to sweep the series and advance to the Eastern Conference Final. The Bolts have won five consecutive games after winning Games 6 and 7 against the Toronto Maple Leafs before defeating the Panthers in the first three contests of this series.

Tampa Bay has led a series 3-0 on four separate occasions in the history of the franchise and have won all of them. Over the course of those four series, the Lightning have completed a sweep twice (2004 ECSF vs. MTL and 2011 ECSF vs. WSH), gone to five games once (2021 SCF vs. MTL) and won the series in six games once (2015 ECSF vs. MTL). A win tonight would mark Tampa Bay's first four-game sweep under head coach Jon Cooper and would also make the Bolts just the third different franchise and fourth different team to win 10 or more consecutive playoff series, joining the New York Islanders (19 from 1980-84) and Montreal Canadiens (13 from 1976-80 and 10 from 1956-60).
Overall, the Bolts are 20-13 all-time in Game 4s.
"Everybody knows these are the hardest ones to win," said Lightning forward Corey Perry on Monday morning. "Their backs are against the wall and you know they're going to play with desperation. You know they're going to come out. You know what they're going to do.
"They're going to push. We have to meet that. It's a matter of will and want."

Perry has shown that will and want throughout this postseason. He's scored the Lightning's first goal in all three of their wins against Florida. He leads Tampa Bay with three goals this series and is tied for the team-lead in total playoff goals with five. After Brayden Point went down with a lower-body injury in Game 7 in Toronto, Perry was tasked with filling his spot on the top power-play unit. The veteran winger didn't miss a beat and has already netted two power-play goals in the series against Florida.
After falling to the Lightning in two straight Stanley Cup Finals, Perry is enjoying the ride with Tampa Bay, a team that he'll be back with next season after signing a two-year deal prior to the 2021-22 season.
"To be here doing it with these guys and to see what actually goes on on a day-to-day basis around here, it's pretty special," Perry said. "It's a pretty special group and you've seen why they won back-to-back. I'm just trying to help any way I can.
"Playing against them in the Finals the last couple years, I know first-hand how hard it is to play against them. It's not much fun, but I'm glad I'm on this side."
A lot of the Bolts' success this postseason has come from playing solid defense and making the necessary sacrifices to be successful. The Bolts have surrendered just one goal over each of their last four games. They're playing better defensively and Andrei Vasilevskiy looks completely dialed in between the pipes.
"We've been better than we were in the Toronto series," said Tampa Bay defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. "We weren't playing well in front of him (Vasilevskiy), so it's not him. He's been doing the same things over and over, saving some big shots.
"[The] last couple games, we've been much, much better in front of him and I feel like it's easier for him to play. He still makes those stops on the breakaways and 2-on-1's, but I feel like we've been better."
The team certainly has been better and the proof is in the results. No team scored more goals in the regular season than the Panthers, who lit the lamp 337 times and averaged a league-best 4.11 goals-per-game.
With the Lightning playing so hard for every inch of ice, Florida has struggled to find the offense that made them so successful during the regular season. Sergachev knows the feeling. In 2018-19, the Bolts led the NHL with 319 goals before falling to the Columbus Blue Jackets in four games in the first round of the playoffs.

"I remember my second season, 62 wins," Sergachev said. "When we got them, we used to score six or seven goals a game.
"In the playoffs we just couldn't score a goal, so it was frustrating."
Scoring goals has been better for the Lightning in this year's postseason. Of the eight teams remaining, the Bolts rank third in goals-per-game with a 3.4 average. That's all started from taking care of their own end and letting the offense come from there, but one thing that's helped is the incredible play of Nikita Kucherov, who leads all skaters in this series with seven points (2G, 5A) through the first three games. To put that in perspective, all 13 Florida forwards that have skated in this series have combined for seven points total.
"He's just a game-changer," said Sergachev. "He always wants to make a change, but it's a game.
"There's like 39 other players that want to make change too, but when he gets the puck, he creates magic."
After picking up three assists on Sunday afternoon, Kucherov has now recorded 94 career playoff assists and passed Gordie Howe to move into fifth place all-time in the NHL for playoff assists among wingers. He's on a tear for the Lightning this series and they'll hope for more of that in Game 4.
Perry put it simply, "Kuch sees the game so different than everybody else."
He'll have an opportunity to lead the Bolts to their third sweep in franchise history when the puck gets dropped at 7 p.m. ET tonight at AMALIE Arena.