After winning their first playoff series in more than 25 years, the Florida Panthers will face a familiar foe in the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Panthers pulled off a thrilling 4-3 overtime victory against the Washington Capitals in Game 6 Friday to close out the series, winning their first postseason series since 1996 — when they reached the Stanley Cup against the Colorado Avalanche.
Putting to rest the 26-year-old demon, the Panthers will have the chance to avenge last year’s playoff loss to their in-state rival after falling to the two-time defending Stanley Cup champ Lightning in six games.
Overcoming a 3-2 series deficit against Toronto, Tampa Bay earned consecutive victories, including a 2-1 Game 7 victory on Saturday. Tampa Bay is trying to become the first team since the New York Islanders (1980-1983) to win three straight Stanley Cup titles.
The Panthers will open the second-round series against the Lightning on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at FLALive Arena in Sunrise.
“They’re a championship team,” Panthers coach Andrew Brunette said of Tampa Bay. “They know how to close out games as you saw the other night. They know how to get up for games. They find the key big moments in the game to turn it on. They’re a great team. They are what we want to be and this is a great opportunity for us.”
Possessing a championship pedigree, Tampa Bay has an abundance of postseason experience, winning the last two Stanley Cup Finals against Dallas in 2020 and Montreal in 2021.
Panthers defender Ben Chiarot, who was acquired by Florida at the trade deadline in March from Montreal, was part of that Montreal team that lost to the Lightning in the finals last season.
“It’s always fun to take a shot at the defending champs,” Chiarot said. “These guys know them pretty well. I know them pretty well so it’ll be fun. … These guys are obviously really familiar with them. They’re rivals down here in Florida. It’s nice to kind of jump in and be part of that.”
With the Panthers (3.33) and Lightning (3.29) both ranking in the top 10 in goals scored per game, the goaltender battle between Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy will be one of the biggest matchups in the series.
Bobrovsky consistently made timely saves throughout the first round, finishing with a 2.79 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage.
Vasilevskiy — the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy given to the MVP in the playoffs last season — has played every minute of every postseason game for Tampa Bay during its run of nine consecutive series victories. He finished the series against Toronto with a 3.04 goals-against average and a .897 save percentage.
“Two elite goalies in the league,” Brunette said. “I think Bob is looking forward to the challenge and so are we.”
Another key area heading into the second round is Florida’s struggles on the power play, going 0 for 18 with a man advantage against Washington.
The Panthers, who ranked third in the league in power-play goals during the regular season, became the ninth team in NHL history to win a best-of-seven series without scoring a power-play goal.
“Nobody overly cares when you a win series if the power play scores or not as long as you win,” Brunette said. “This is a new series, we have the opportunity to get better at it. We’ve been great at it all year. We just had a little hiccup that series … Hopefully, we have a fresh new mentality going forward. I think with our skill guys, we just need to make a play and I think that’ll loosen all that out.”
