SUNRISE, Fla. – The Battle of Florida is about to begin again.
Facing each other in the playoffs for the third time in the last four seasons, the Florida Panthers will kick off their quest to return to the Stanley Cup Final with an exciting matchup against the cross-state rival Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference First Round.
The action will begin with Game 1 at Amerant Bank Arena on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Cats captain Aleksander Barkov said of the impending series. “It’s going to be a battle. All the games against them – even training camp games – those games get emotional. It’s going to be a lot of fun for both sides and just a hard battle.”
Building off last year’s run to the Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers, making their fifth straight trip to the playoffs, finished the regular season as the top team in the Atlantic Division after leapfrogging the Boston Bruins with a 5-2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 82.
Reaching the postseason in 10 of the last 11 seasons, the Lightning, who won the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021 and reached the Final in 2022, enter this year’s playoffs as a wild card for the first time since 1995-96, finishing four points out of third place in the Atlantic.
While the Lightning came out on top in each of their two previous head-to-head playoff matchups in 2021 and 2022, the Panthers are focused more on the future than the past.
This is a team on a mission.
“There’s a history between the two teams and it’s been exciting,” said Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, who was hired in June of 2022. “Then there’s the fresh start. What happens in the past matters not, except if you can find some good in that. History and momentum get rewritten every time that the puck drops. You get to reinvent yourself.”
With puck drop on the horizon, here’s everything you need to know for Round 1.
THE BASICS
Panthers (1A): 52-24-6, 110 points
Lightning (WC1): 45-29-8, 98 points
Season series: FLA: 2-1-0 | TBL: 1-2-0
Offense: FLA: 3.23 GF/GP (11th); 23.5% PP (8th) | TBL: 3.51 GF/GP (5th); 28.6% PP (1st)
Defense: FLA: 2.41 GA/GP (T-1st); 82.5% PK (6th) | TBL: 3.26 GA/GP (22nd); 83.3% PK (5th)
ADVANCED NUMBERS (5-ON-5)
Panthers: 59.55 CF% (2nd), 56.57 GF% (3rd), 54.31 xGF% (5th), 53.78 HDCF% (6th)
Lightning: 50.52 CF% (17th), 47.37 GF% (25th), 49.07 xGF% (21st), 51.02 HDCF% (13th)
LEADING SCORERS
Panthers: Sam Reinhart (57 goals, 94 points), Matthew Tkachuk (26 goals, 88 points), Aleksander Barkov (23 goals, 80 points), Carter Verhaeghe (34 points, 72 points), Vladimir Tarasenko (23 goals, 55 points)
Lightning: Nikita Kucherov (44 goals, 144 points), Brayden Point (46 goals, 90 points), Steven Stamkos (40 goals, 81 points), Victor Hedman (13 goals, 76 points), Brandon Hagel (26 goals, 75 points)
Breakdown: The Panthers benefit from a deep and balanced attack, but also have an abundance of lethal weapons within their top-six. Reinhart is coming off a breakout 57-goal season, while Barkov continues to produce at better than a point-per-game clip with Selke Trophy-worthy defense. Tkachuk remains a superstar and always elevates his game to a new level in the postseason, a notion evidenced by his four game-winning goals during last year’s epic run. For the Lightning, Kucherov could be taking home the Hart Trophy after his 144-point season. Filling up the back of the net, Point and Stamkos are two elite sharpshooters, especially on the power play. Of their combined 86 goals, 34 came on the man advantage.
GOALIE MATCHUP
Panthers: Sergei Bobrovsky (36-17-4, 2.37 GAA, .915 SV%), Anthony Stolarz (16-7-2, 2.03 GAA, .925 SV%)
Lightning: Andrei Vasilevskiy (30-20-2, 2.90 GAA, .900 SV%), Matt Tomkins (3-2-1, 3.33 GAA, .892 SV%)
Breakdown: There’s no shortage of hardware between the pipes in this matchup. When warmups get underway in Game 1, it’ll be Bobrovsky (2013 and 2017 Vezina Trophy winner) and Vasilevskiy (2019 Vezina Trophy winner) leading their respective squads onto the ice. A rock in net for the Panthers this season, Bobrovsky is heading into the playoffs on a heater, going 4-1-1 with a .921 save percentage and two shutouts in his final six starts. Finishing with the lowest save percentage of his career (.900), Vasilevskiy, who missed the start of the season due to an injury, went 1-3-0 with a .883 save percentage over his final four stats. That being said, “The Big Cat” has been one of the top playoff goaltenders of this era, going 65-42 with a .921 save percentage in 110 career appearances with Tampa Bay.
X-FACTOR
Panthers: You can’t teach the clutch gene, and Carter Verhaeghe has it. Since joining the Panthers following a Stanley Cup-winning season with the Lightning in 2019-20, the silky-smooth sniper leads Florida in both playoff goals (15) and points (32). Of those 15 goals, a whopping seven have been game-winners, including four in overtime. When the game is on the line, Verhaeghe is the player you want to be taking the big shot.
Lightning: After scoring four goals for the Panthers during last year’s run to the Stanley Cup Final, Anthony Duclair now finds himself on the other side of the Battle of Florida. Acquired by the Lightning from the San Jose Sharks at the deadline, the speedy winger has provided some nice depth scoring in a top-line role, notching 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) in 17 games following the trade. If the Panthers are able to keep stars like Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point in relative check, Duclair will need to pick up the slack.
REGULAR SEASON
The Panthers got the better of the Lightning during the regular season.
Coming out on top in two of three meetings, they outscored the Bolts 15-9.
Matthew Tkachuk led the Panthers with six points in the season series, while Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett each tallied five points. Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos each posted a team-high four points for the Lightning, but both players also had a -4 plus/minus rating.
In their first meeting on Dec. 27 at Amalie Arena, Reinhart scored two goals and Sergei Bobrovsky made 27 saves in a 3-2 win for the Panthers. Facing off again in Tampa on Feb. 17, the Panthers had three players score multiple goals in a 9-2 beatdown on the road.
Getting some revenge, the Lightning secured a 5-3 win in their final meeting of the regular season on March 16 at Amerant Bank Arena. After falling behind 4-0, the Panthers clawed back to make it a 4-3 game before Kucherov buried an empty-netter to lock in the 5-3 final.
“You watch those games maybe a little bit,” Reinhart said of the season series. “It’s all about executing our game plan and sticking to what gives us success. Whoever does that better is probably going to come out on top. They’ve obviously got some of the best talent in the world. If we can minimize their time and space, make them feel as uncomfortable as possible, we’re going to be better off.”
ROUND 1 SCHEDULE
Game 1: Sunday, April 21 | Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning | 12:30 p.m. | Amerant Bank Arena | ESPN, SN, TVAS, BSF, BSS
Game 2: Tuesday, April 23 | Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning | 7:30 p.m. | Amerant Bank Arena | ESPN2, SN360, TVAS, BSF, BSS
Game 3: Thursday, April 25 | Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning | 7 p.m. | Amalie Arena | TBS, MAX, SN, TVAS, BSF, BSS
Game 4: Saturday, April 27 | Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning | 5 p.m. | Amalie Arena | TBS, TruTV, MAX, SNE, SNW, SNP, TVAS, BSF, BSS
*Game 5: Monday, April 29 | Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning | TBD | Amerant Bank Arena | TV TBD
*Game 6: Wednesday, May 1 | Florida Panthers at Tampa Bay Lightning | TBD | Amalie Arena | TV TBD
*Game 7: Saturday, May 4 | Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning | TBD | Amerant Bank Arena | TV TBD
KEY QUOTES
“It’s going to be pride and fight. It’s going to be an awesome series and you know it. There’s no quit in either room. If we’re all lucky we can get it to seven games and overtime because that’d be all the juice you can handle for a hockey season.” – Paul Maurice
“Very exciting for this opportunity to be back in the playoffs the way last year went. I think it’s very fitting to be playing Tampa in this first round. What an unbelievable run they’ve been on since the All-Star break. They’re playing very well and we’re playing well. I think it’s going to make for a great series.” – Matthew Tkachuk
"It's always fireworks when we play these guys. It's always a good game. They're an awesome team and really skilled, physical. They have all the elements of a really good team. It's going to be two good teams going at it." – Carter Verhaeghe
“You learn from experience. You learn what it takes. You see the type of game that’s going to give you success at this time of year, and that’s what we’ve tried to play all year. We’re going to stick to it.” – Sam Reinhart
“You can feel it coming. It’s been a while since we clinched. Now’s the time. Now we have to prepare. We can feel it coming in this room. It’s all about playoffs now. It’s coming.” – Aleksander Barkov
To stay on top of everything during the playoffs, stay tuned to FloridaPanthers.com/Playoffs.
