Entering Tuesday's slate of games, Florida trails Columbus by one point for the second wild card spot and New Jersey by four points for the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Panthers also hold three games in hand on each club they are chasing.
"I don't know if you can really pinpoint on specific thing that's been reason," Panthers center Vincent Trocheck said when asked about the team's miraculous run. "I think it's a matter of us coming together as a team, realizing what's on the line, sticking to our structure a little bit more and then, obviously, turning it up a notch."
The Panthers have scored three-or-more goals in each of their last six games, with Aleksander Barkov, who was named the NHL's third star of the week on Monday, leading the team with 10 points (5-5-10) during that span. Barkov's linemate, Evgenii Dadonov, scored five goals during the homestand, including his career-first NHL hat trick on Feb. 24 against Pittsburgh.
"He's a slippery little player that just finds seams, finds holes," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of Dadonov. "Like the other night against Philly, he kind of hemmed in their zone and the next thing you know he's on the breakaway and it's in the net."
Roberto Luongo will start for the Panthers after stopping 39 of 40 shots in a 4-1 win over the Flyers on Sunday. The 38-year-old goaltender has been spectacular since returning from a groin injury that kept him out of the lineup for almost 11 weeks, posting a 6-1-0 record with a 2.27 goals-against average and a .935 save percentage.
Florida has allowed just six goals over its last four games.
"They have a lot of really good forwards that can make plays and a lot of them that can bury the puck, too," Panthers defenseman Mike Matheson said of Tampa Bay's attack. "We really have to be aware of that and take their time and space away. That seems like that's always what we're saying, but that's what works. When top players don't have a lot of time to make the plays they want to make, that's when they get frustrated."
The Lightning (45-17-4) certainly have no shortage of top players.
Led by Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, the team boasts six players that have scored at least 18 goals and three players with at least 26 goals. Kucherov leads the NHL with 85 points (33-52-85), while Stamkos is tied for fifth with 77 (27-50-77).
"You have to be aware of who you're out there against," Trocheck said. "You have to make sure you know when you're out there against Stamkos and Kucherov, taking it a little bit more cautiously when you're out there with them."
Tampa Bay leads the season series after going 2-1-0 against the Panthers in October. But with so much time having passed between their last meeting, players and coaches from both teams agree that those early-season matchups won't factor into Tuesday night's result.
"It was a short trip over here," Matheson said. "It's always fun being a part of the battle of Florida."
