Aleksander Barkov recalls feeling let down in the past. The had been knocked out of the NHL playoffs by the Tampa Bay Lightning in their last three matchups. For the Panthers to prove themselves among the NHL’s elite, they needed a different outcome this year.
“At some point you knew you were going to have them again,” Barkov said, “and you’ve got to be able to get over that hump, and we did it this year.”
Barkov and Carter Verhaege each scored two goals and had an assist, supported by Sergei Bobrovsky’s 31 saves, as the Panthers defeated the Lightning 6-1 in Game 5 on Monday night to secure their first-round series win and advance in the NHL playoffs.
Niko Mikkola contributed a goal and an assist, Evan Rodrigues also scored, and Matthew Tkachuk assisted on two goals for the Panthers. This victory marked the first time the Panthers have won a playoff series against Tampa Bay in franchise history, and only the fourth time they have clinched a postseason series at home.
Florida’s previous home series wins came against Boston and Philadelphia in the first two rounds of the 1996 playoffs, and against Carolina in last season’s Eastern Conference finals, leading to their second appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.
The significance of Monday night’s win was not lost on the Panthers. All three playoff series between the two teams happened in the last four years. Tampa Bay won the first one 4-2 in 2021 and then swept Florida in 2022.
The Panthers won the first three games this year before the Lightning won 6-3 in Game 4, making the Panthers close out the series on home ice.
“This was a big series for us,” said Tkachuk, who had three goals and six assists in the first round. “We always knew that for us to win it all, it was probably going to have to go through Tampa at some point, so just an amazing feeling closing it out at home.”
Victor Hedman scored for the Lightning, which was eliminated in the first round for the second straight year after reaching the Final three straight years. Andrei Vasilevsky stopped 33 shots.
Verhaeghe scored first for the Panthers with a four-on-four goal just 45 seconds into the second period. He got his own rebound and shot past Vasilevsky.
Barkov made it a 2-0 lead when he scored a short-handed goal at 7:22 of the second period. He scored again at 8:54 of the third period to restore the Panthers’ two-goal lead after Hedman’s goal.
The Panthers had 22 shots on goal in the second period, the second-highest in a single playoff game in team history. Florida had 23 shots in the third period of a playoff win against Pittsburgh in 1996.
Rodrigues scored with less than six minutes left on a wrist shot, his first goal of the playoffs, and Verhaeghe scored an empty-netter with just under four minutes to go to increase his franchise-record goals total to 20. Mikkola added another empty-netter nearly three minutes later.
Anthony Cirelli seemed to score Tampa Bay’s first goal, tapping a loose puck past Bobrovsky with seven minutes left in the first period. However, the goal was overturned after the Panthers challenged for goaltender interference. Anthony Duclair’s right skate made contact with Bobrovsky as he tried to make the save.
The Lightning had another goal waved off in the second period when Mikhail Sergachev appeared to tie it with a long-range shot from the blue line. The goal was waved off immediately due to goaltender interference by Cirelli and upheld after a failed Tampa Bay challenge.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper said he didn’t think Duclair’s interference was serious enough to disallow the goal.
“Now we need to bounce back from that. We have to, and then the next one is a battle in front of the net. I’ll give credit to the goalie — He gave up on the play entirely. He completely stopped trying. There was maybe some accidental contact at most.
“Are net-front battles not allowed anymore?” Cooper asked further. “That’s a part of everyone’s game. The physicality there is like rough rules in the playoffs. But it’s not rough rules for the goalie? …
And when the players are putting in so much effort on both teams, like I said, it’s a battle down there, I think we’re letting the goalies off easy.”
The Lightning, who had the best power play in the NHL during the regular season, were inconsistent in this first round. Tampa Bay had two power plays in the first 10 minutes of the opening period — Florida successfully defended against both — and ended the game 0 for 3.
