Sonny Sachdeva @sachdevasonny – TSN the top source for sports in Canada.

To get a sense of just how pivotal the first-round bout between the Atlantic Division’s second- and third-best squads could be, consider this: for the past half-decade, the road to the Stanley Cup has run through Florida.

Five straight Cup Finals, five straight appearances from either the Florida Panthers or the Tampa Bay Lightning. The last time the post-season’s final round didn’t feature one of the two Floridian squads, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ was still lighting up the Billboard Hot 100. Avengers: Endgame was just touching down in theatres. So, while we’ve seen plenty of it over the past few years, recent history suggests the stakes remain sky high for the 2025 iteration of the Sunshine State’s rivalry round.

Of course, much has changed over the course of those five years of Floridian Cup-hunting. After three straight seasons of watching the Bolts march to the Final — two of which ended in banners and rings for Victor Hedman and Co. — the Panthers grabbed the wheel and took over in 2023, authoring two Cup Final runs of their own. Now, after reaching the summit in 2024, they head into the 2025 playoffs not as an underdog, not as a hopeful, but as the defending champs.

But the paths the two clubs have taken this season suggests another reversal might be coming.

In the wake of their championship run, the Panthers have been on a rollercoaster. Free agency plucked a few key names off the roster, injuries claimed a couple more, and other unforeseen plot twists — like the PED violation that earned Aaron Ekblad a 20-game ban — sapped even more stability from the campaign. The result is a Panthers squad that doesn’t seem to be rolling quite as smoothly as the one that lifted the Cup last June. Still, the key leaders are all wearing Panthers colours, and they know the real games begin next week.

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And then there’s the Bolts. The fall from grace seemed swift for the perennial finalists, Tampa Bay losing the 2022 Cup to Colorado and then getting bounced in the first round in each of the next two years, each time by a club they’d previously walked over. Then came some tough decisions, none more ruthless than the organization moving on from longtime captain Steven Stamkos. Brutal as their rapid retool might’ve been, the Bolts now find themselves back among the league’s elite after a brief spell in the wild-card race.

With no shortage of big-game experience between the two clubs and their all-world leaders, which Floridian outfit books a ticket to the second round, and perhaps beyond?

Head-to-head record

Panthers: 2-2-0

Lightning: 2-2-0

The breakdown

The Cats are going to have their hands full with this version of the Lightning. After a middling 2023-24, the Bolts have returned to their former place as one of the league’s most dangerous outfits — they enter the post-season with the NHL’s most prolific offence, and they’ve been no less elite on the defensive side, namely due to their future Hall of Fame netminder rediscovering his elite form.

The Panthers’ regular season has been more a mixed bag. They finished middle-of-the-pack offensively and were a top-10 club defensively, but the numbers don’t tell us all that much about what this group really is. Much of their regular season was navigated without vital members of their squad in the lineup. And after two straight trips to the Final, this Florida core needs no lessons about what’s required when regular-season hockey gives way to the playoff grind. Paul Maurice’s side has cemented their identity over the course of the past two years, and regardless of their regular-season performance, you wonder if they’ll show up in Game 1 as that familiar, relentless behemoth from last year’s Cup run.

If there is a thorn in the side of Florida’s hopes of going back-to-back, it might simply be health. As dangerous as the Cats are, they aren’t the same club without Matthew Tkachuk doing what he does best. The 27-year-old has suggested he expects to be back for Game 1 of the first round — still, he hasn’t suited up for his club since early February. How he looks upon his return, how quickly he can get back up to speed, and whether he can get the Panthers offence rolling at the level it’s shown over the past few post-seasons will be crucial.

Tampa Bay is in the opposite boat. They head into Round 1 with a devastatingly deep group — Nikita Kucherov is fresh off his second straight Art Ross-winning campaign, Brayden Point has turned in another elite season beside him, Jake Guentzel has put up perhaps his finest season in his first turn as a Bolt, Brandon Hagel has evolved from quality depth piece to elite scorer, and Victor Hedman has risen back to fringes of the Norris conversation at 34 years old. 

But the most important performance from any member of the Lightning this season undoubtedly came from the man in the cage. After putting up some of the worst numbers of his career in 2023-24, Andre Vasilevskiy bounced back with a vintage effort in 2024-25, his .921 save percentage the best he’s posted in four years, and the third-best mark he’s ever put up. 

Florida has its own quality veteran in the cage, of course, and both Vasilevskiy and Sergei Bobrovsky have proven able to come up with a game-changing, series-altering moment when it’s needed most. With all the firepower housed in each lineup, it might just come down to which netminder outshines the other.

Advanced stats
(5-on-5 totals from Natural Stat Trick)

By: Amalie Benjamin

@AmalieBenjamin NHL.com Senior Writer

The first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features 16 teams in eight best-of-7 series, which start Saturday. Today, NHL.com previews the Eastern Conference First Round between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

(2A) Tampa Bay Lightning vs. (3A) Florida Panthers

Lightning: 47-26-8, 102 points
Panthers: 47-31-4, 98 points
Season series: TBL: 2-2-0; FLA: 2-2-0
Game 1: Tuesday at Tampa Bay (8:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, TVAS 2, FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS)

The Battle of Florida is back.

For the fourth time in five years, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers will meet in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

But this time there’s a twist. In 2021 and 2022, the Lightning were the defending Stanley Cup champion; this time the Panthers are. Each time the two teams have faced each other, the winner of the series has gone on to reach the Stanley Cup Final.

The Panthers and the Lightning are potential Stanley Cup finalists this season, coming out of a top-heavy Atlantic Division that will see one very good team make an earlier-than-expected exit.

“I think it’s great for hockey in Florida because there’s two elite teams,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “Either one of them could win the whole thing. And certainly the eyes in Florida and the fans in both cities will be wired right into it. So it’s great for hockey.”

Last year the Panthers beat the Lightning in five games in the Eastern Conference First Round, before defeating the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers to win the franchise’s first championship.

“We know what they’re about and we know the skill level they bring and the intensity they bring,” Lightning forward Yanni Gourde said. “We’re excited for this challenge. It’s going to be a fun series. I’m excited for the playoffs to start.”

This has not been the regular season that the Panthers expected, with injuries playing a significant impact in recent weeks. Forward Matthew Tkachuk has not played since sustaining a lower-body injury while playing for the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off on Feb. 15. The Panthers also have been without defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who was suspended 20 games for violating the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program; he will be eligible to return in Game 3 of the series. Forward Sam Bennett was out from April 5-14 because of an upper-body injury and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov was out from March 16-April 14 because of an upper-body injury.

But getting Tkachuk and Ekblad back will be crucial for the Panthers as they attempt to repeat.

“I think we had a real learning experience this year, going through the grind of a regular season after last year,” Maurice said. “We lost some guys for big chunks of time. So it was a grinder for us, but there was lots to learn. We stuck together, cheering for each other. And now we’re at the part of the year that everybody’s really excited about.”

The Lightning have been one of the hotter teams in the second half, starting with an eight-game winning streak from Feb. 4-March 1. They started that day in the second wild card spot in the East, tied in points with the Boston Bruins; they finished the second in the Atlantic, earning home-ice advantage in the first round.

Even in a year of transition, including the departure of forward Steven Stamkos during the offseason via free agency, the Lightning ended up right back where they have been now for eight straight seasons: the playoffs.

“We put ourselves in a position to fight for a Stanley Cup,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “There are 32 teams in this league and there’s only 16 left. We’re one of the 16. Every year we get looked at as, ‘OK, their time is over,’ and every year these guys come back and prove they can do it. It’s been amazing to be a part of for over a decade. This group wants to make more memories. … Let’s see what we can do in the playoffs.”

Game breakers

Lightning: While the Lightning have the top offense in the NHL at 3.60 goals per game, there’s no question which player is above the rest: Nikita Kucherov. The forward surpassed 100 points for the third straight season and fifth time in his 11 NHL seasons, with 121 points (37 goals, 84 assists) in 77 games to lead the NHL. And though he was third on the Lightning in goals, behind Brayden Point‘s 42 and Jake Guentzel‘s 41, it’s clear that Kucherov remains the engine for Tampa Bay in a season in which he won his second consecutive (and third overall) Art Ross Trophy as the the League’s top scorer.

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.693.0_en.html#fid=goog_449078369Play Video

FLA@TBL: Kucherov finishes slick passing play for 4-0 lead

Panthers: Sam Reinhart didn’t approach the 57 goals he scored last season, finishing 2024-25 with 39 goals and 81 points in 79 games, but the forward remains the most likely to pop in a goal for the Panthers, something he managed to do 10 times during their run to the Stanley Cup last season. He plays the most of any forward on the Panthers, averaging 20:30 of ice time this season, and he will be counted on to be a major piece for an offense that was 15th in the NHL averaging 3.00 goals per game.

Goaltending

Lightning: Though the 2023-24 season was a struggle at times for Andrei Vasilevskiy, this season has been a massive bounce-back campaign for the goalie, who appears to have regained the form that led him to win the Vezina Trophy in 2019 and help the Lightning win the Stanley Cup twice. He has been so good that he finished first in the NHL Players’ Association player poll as the best overall goalie after he had a 2.18 goals-against average and .921 save percentage in 63 games. He is backed up by Jonas Johansson, who had a 3.08 GAA and .898 save percentage in 18 games (17 starts) but should see no time in the playoffs if all goes well.

Panthers: Sergei Bobrovsky is one of the few goalies who can match Vasilevskiy in hardware. He has won the Vezina twice (2013, 2017) and nearly won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs last season in leading the Panthers to their first Stanley Cup. The 36-year-old has a 2.44 GAA and .906 save percentage in 54 games. His backup is Vitek Vanecek, who had a 3.00 GAA and .890 in seven games after being acquired in a trade with the San Jose Sharks on March 5. That move came four days after the Panthers traded goalie Spencer Knight, who began the season as Bobrovsky’s backup, to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Seth Jones.

Numbers to know

Lightning: Since the start of last season, Kucherov has 265 points (81 goals, 184 assists) in 158 games, more than Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak or anyone else in the NHL. And during the past 10 years, since the start of the 2015 playoffs, he also leads the NHL in postseason scoring with 166 points (52 goals, 114 assists) in 145 games.

Panthers: The Panthers have played a lot of hockey of late. From Oct. 13, 2022 until Tuesday, their final day of the regular season, the Panthers played 291 games in 915 days, as they made it to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past two seasons.

They said it

“There were a lot of question marks about what this team was going to look like after we lost a cornerstone of our organization [Stamkos]. I think there was a lot of uncertainty about how things were going to play out. If you look back from then to now, we’ve got 100-plus points. Not only did we make the playoffs but we found a way to get home ice.” — Cooper

“We know what it feels like to win and how hard it takes. We’re just going in day by day, take it day by day. We’re not thinking we’re the defending champs. There’s a lot of really good teams that finished ahead of us in the standings all year. I don’t think we’re the best team going in. That’s our mindset.” — Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe

Will win if …

Lightning: They do exactly what they’ve been doing during the second half of the season. While the Panthers have been struggling, the Lightning have been soaring. They have all the pieces needed to make a long run through the playoffs, from the goaltending to the offense to the experience to the health. They know how to do what they have to do and what they need to do. All they have ahead of them is to do it.

Panthers: They get healthy and quickly get back up to speed. The Panthers haven’t been able to figure out exactly what their lines will look like given the injuries they’ve had at the end of the season, including to Tkachuk, Bennett, Kulikov, plus the suspension of Ekblad. Even Brad Marchand recently said he wasn’t quite sure how the lines would look come playoff time. So if the Panthers can find their groove quickly, they’ll be in good shape.

How they look

Lightning projected lineup

Yanni Gourde — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov

Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Jake Guentzel

Gage Goncalves — Nick Paul — Conor Geekie

Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening

Victor Hedman — JJ Moser

Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak

Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix


Darren Raddysh


Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Scratched: Mitchell Chaffee


Injured: Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower body)

Panthers projected lineup

Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart

Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand

Evan Rodrigues — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist

Gustav Forsling – Seth Jones

Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov

Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt

Sergei Bobrovsky

Vitek Vanecek

Scratched: Rasmus Asplund, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek, Matt Kiersted, Jaycob Megna

Injured: None

Suspended: Aaron Ekblad

NHL.com independent correspondents Corey Long and George Richards contributed to this report

By Amalie Benjamin

@AmalieBenjamin 

NHL.com Senior Writer – For the best hockey coverage go to NHL.COM

The first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features 16 teams in eight best-of-7 series, which start Saturday. Today, NHL.com previews the Eastern Conference First Round between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

(2A) Tampa Bay Lightning vs. (3A) Florida Panthers

Lightning: 47-26-8, 102 points
Panthers: 47-31-4, 98 points
Season series: TBL: 2-2-0; FLA: 2-2-0
Game 1: Tuesday at Tampa Bay (8:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, TVAS 2, FDSNSUN, SCRIPPS)

The Battle of Florida is back.

For the fourth time in five years, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers will meet in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

But this time there’s a twist. In 2021 and 2022, the Lightning were the defending Stanley Cup champion; this time the Panthers are. Each time the two teams have faced each other, the winner of the series has gone on to reach the Stanley Cup Final.

The Panthers and the Lightning are potential Stanley Cup finalists this season, coming out of a top-heavy Atlantic Division that will see one very good team make an earlier-than-expected exit.

“I think it’s great for hockey in Florida because there’s two elite teams,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “Either one of them could win the whole thing. And certainly the eyes in Florida and the fans in both cities will be wired right into it. So it’s great for hockey.”

Last year the Panthers beat the Lightning in five games in the Eastern Conference First Round, before defeating the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers to win the franchise’s first championship.

“We know what they’re about and we know the skill level they bring and the intensity they bring,” Lightning forward Yanni Gourde said. “We’re excited for this challenge. It’s going to be a fun series. I’m excited for the playoffs to start.”

This has not been the regular season that the Panthers expected, with injuries playing a significant impact in recent weeks. Forward Matthew Tkachuk has not played since sustaining a lower-body injury while playing for the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off on Feb. 15. The Panthers also have been without defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who was suspended 20 games for violating the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program; he will be eligible to return in Game 3 of the series. Forward Sam Bennett was out from April 5-14 because of an upper-body injury and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov was out from March 16-April 14 because of an upper-body injury.

But getting Tkachuk and Ekblad back will be crucial for the Panthers as they attempt to repeat.

“I think we had a real learning experience this year, going through the grind of a regular season after last year,” Maurice said. “We lost some guys for big chunks of time. So it was a grinder for us, but there was lots to learn. We stuck together, cheering for each other. And now we’re at the part of the year that everybody’s really excited about.”

The Lightning have been one of the hotter teams in the second half, starting with an eight-game winning streak from Feb. 4-March 1. They started that day in the second wild card spot in the East, tied in points with the Boston Bruins; they finished the second in the Atlantic, earning home-ice advantage in the first round.

Even in a year of transition, including the departure of forward Steven Stamkos during the offseason via free agency, the Lightning ended up right back where they have been now for eight straight seasons: the playoffs.

“We put ourselves in a position to fight for a Stanley Cup,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “There are 32 teams in this league and there’s only 16 left. We’re one of the 16. Every year we get looked at as, ‘OK, their time is over,’ and every year these guys come back and prove they can do it. It’s been amazing to be a part of for over a decade. This group wants to make more memories. … Let’s see what we can do in the playoffs.”

Game breakers

Lightning: While the Lightning have the top offense in the NHL at 3.60 goals per game, there’s no question which player is above the rest: Nikita Kucherov. The forward surpassed 100 points for the third straight season and fifth time in his 11 NHL seasons, with 121 points (37 goals, 84 assists) in 77 games to lead the NHL. And though he was third on the Lightning in goals, behind Brayden Point‘s 42 and Jake Guentzel‘s 41, it’s clear that Kucherov remains the engine for Tampa Bay in a season in which he won his second consecutive (and third overall) Art Ross Trophy as the League’s top scorer.

Panthers: Sam Reinhart didn’t approach the 57 goals he scored last season, finishing 2024-25 with 39 goals and 81 points in 79 games, but the forward remains the most likely to pop in a goal for the Panthers, something he managed to do 10 times during their run to the Stanley Cup last season. He plays the most of any forward on the Panthers, averaging 20:30 of ice time this season, and he will be counted on to be a major piece for an offense that was 15th in the NHL averaging 3.00 goals per game.

Goaltending

Lightning: Though the 2023-24 season was a struggle at times for Andrei Vasilevskiy, this season has been a massive bounce-back campaign for the goalie, who appears to have regained the form that led him to win the Vezina Trophy in 2019 and help the Lightning win the Stanley Cup twice. He has been so good that he finished first in the NHL Players’ Association player poll as the best overall goalie after he had a 2.18 goals-against average and .921 save percentage in 63 games. He is backed up by Jonas Johansson, who had a 3.08 GAA and .898 save percentage in 18 games (17 starts) but should see no time in the playoffs if all goes well.

Panthers: Sergei Bobrovsky is one of the few goalies who can match Vasilevskiy in hardware. He has won the Vezina twice (2013, 2017) and nearly won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs last season in leading the Panthers to their first Stanley Cup. The 36-year-old has a 2.44 GAA and .906 save percentage in 54 games. His backup is Vitek Vanecek, who had a 3.00 GAA and .890 in seven games after being acquired in a trade with the San Jose Sharks on March 5. That move came four days after the Panthers traded goalie Spencer Knight, who began the season as Bobrovsky’s backup, to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Seth Jones.

Numbers to know

Lightning: Since the start of last season, Kucherov has 265 points (81 goals, 184 assists) in 158 games, more than Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak or anyone else in the NHL. And during the past 10 years, since the start of the 2015 playoffs, he also leads the NHL in postseason scoring with 166 points (52 goals, 114 assists) in 145 games.

Panthers: The Panthers have played a lot of hockey of late. From Oct. 13, 2022 until Tuesday, their final day of the regular season, the Panthers played 291 games in 915 days, as they made it to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past two seasons.

They said it

“There were a lot of question marks about what this team was going to look like after we lost a cornerstone of our organization [Stamkos]. I think there was a lot of uncertainty about how things were going to play out. If you look back from then to now, we’ve got 100-plus points. Not only did we make the playoffs but we found a way to get home ice.” — Cooper

“We know what it feels like to win and how hard it takes. We’re just going in day by day, take it day by day. We’re not thinking we’re the defending champs. There’s a lot of really good teams that finished ahead of us in the standings all year. I don’t think we’re the best team going in. That’s our mindset.” — Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe

Will win if …

Lightning: They do exactly what they’ve been doing during the second half of the season. While the Panthers have been struggling, the Lightning have been soaring. They have all the pieces needed to make a long run through the playoffs, from the goaltending to the offense to the experience to the health. They know how to do what they have to do and what they need to do. All they have ahead of them is to do it.

Panthers: They get healthy and quickly get back up to speed. The Panthers haven’t been able to figure out exactly what their lines will look like given the injuries they’ve had at the end of the season, including to Tkachuk, Bennett, Kulikov, plus the suspension of Ekblad. Even Brad Marchand recently said he wasn’t quite sure how the lines would look come playoff time. So if the Panthers can find their groove quickly, they’ll be in good shape.

How they look

Lightning projected lineup

Yanni Gourde — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov

Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Jake Guentzel

Gage Goncalves — Nick Paul — Conor Geekie

Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening

Victor Hedman — JJ Moser

Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak

Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix


Darren Raddysh


Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Scratched: Mitchell Chaffee


Injured: Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower body)

Panthers projected lineup

Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart

Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand

Evan Rodrigues — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist

Gustav Forsling – Seth Jones

Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov

Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt

Sergei Bobrovsky

Vitek Vanecek

Scratched: Rasmus Asplund, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek, Matt Kiersted, Jaycob Megna

Injured: None

Suspended: Aaron Ekblad

NHL.com independent correspondents Corey Long and George Richards contributed to this report