‘Slay the dragons:’ How the Panthers finally got past the Lightning in the playoffs

As the Florida Panthers skated out the final few seconds left on the clock to the roar of a nearly sold-out crowd at Amerant Bank Arena, the euphoria started to kick it.

They did it. They beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs.

Florida’s 6-1 win in Game 5 on Monday was the final touch on the Panthers’ opening-round series victory against their in-state rival and has Florida moving on to the second round of the playoffs for a third consecutive season.

“Finally,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said, “we got one on them. It feels good.”

In the grand scheme of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, this was just one series win. The Panthers know they need to win three more to get to their ultimate goal and hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history.

But for the Panthers, especially considering the backstory between these two teams, this series win over the Lightning did mean a little bit more than your ordinary opening-round matchup.

The in-state rivals have only faced off in the playoffs twice. Tampa Bay won the opening-round matchup between the teams in 2021 in six games on its way to a second consecutive Stanley Cup. One year later, the Lightning swept the Panthers (who won the Presidents’ Trophy that year) in the second round and once again returned to the Stanley Cup Finals.

“You’ve have to slay the dragons,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “You’ve got to do the things that you haven’t been able to do to show forward motion and progress. There was more pressure on our team.”

The series sweep in 2022 prompted the Panthers to make some major shakeups in an attempt to create a team that would not only successful in the regular season but be able to sustain a deep postseason.

The two big changes:

▪ In comes Maurice, with more than two decades of NHL coaching experience to instill a defense-first system that builds in the regular season and excels in the playoffs.

▪ And in comes Matthew Tkachuk in a blockbuster trade that sent two local favorites in Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to Calgary to give the Panthers a needed edge and swagger on the ice. Tkachuk immediately leaned into the Florida-Tampa rivalry, proclaiming at his introductory press conference in the summer of 2022 that he hates Tampa now more than Edmonton, Calgary’s bitter rival.

Only nine players remain on the Panthers’ roster from those two previous playoff series defeats against the Lightning: Forwards Aleksander Barkov, Sam Bennett, Ryan Lomberg, Eetu Luostarinen and Verhaeghe; defensemen Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling and Brandon Montour; and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.

“There obviously has been a lot of change since then,” said Ekblad, the second-longest tenured player on the Panthers’ roster. “A lot of growing and a lot of pain along the way. But change is good in that scenario and where we are is incredible.”

Tkachuk stepped up during his playoff series against the Lightning just like he has in so many other big moments during his two seasons with the Panthers, scoring three goals and adding six assists over the five games.

“Just to be in a playoff series against your biggest rival is so cool and so much fun to begin with,” Tkachuk said, “and then to come out on top and be a part of the team that was able to do that for the first time, it makes it that much more special.”

The series win was a showcase of the Panthers’ depth an ability to excel when they are playing their style — strong on the forecheck, gritty, physical, turning defense into offense and getting stellar goaltending along the way.

Of 20 skaters who played in at least one game in the Lightning series, 18 picked up at least one point. Eleven of those 18 scored at least one goal.

Verhaeghe had a team-high five goals. He and Tkachuk each had nine points. No player had a negative plus-minus rating.

Florida held Tampa Bay’s vaunted power play to just four goals in 20 opportunities with a man advantage. Two of those came in Game 4, Florida’s lone loss of the series.

Bobrovsky, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy this year, went toe-to-toe with Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy in net and made big save after big save. Monday was Bobrovsky’s most complete effort, stopping 31 of 32 shots — including all eight classified as high-danger shots.

“It was great to get over the hump,” said Barkov, who scored two goals in the series clincher. “We all remember what happened [in 2021 and 2022]. At some point, we were going to have to see them again and you got to get over the hump. We did it this year and it obviously feels great right now.”