The Florida Panthers will be looking to seal their series win against the Tampa Bay Lightning during Game 5 on Wednesday, April 30. The Panthers, who are up 3-1 in the series, could become the second team to advance to the next round of the playoffs after the Carolina Hurricanes.
Panthers vs. Lightning Potential Lineups l Game 5
The Panthers won the first two games in the series 6-2 and 2-0 with the Bolts pulling one back with a 5-1 win in Game 3. On Monday, April 28, Florida clinched a crucial 4-2 win on home ice at the Amerant Bank Arena. The Bolts are now facing potential elimination in five games in front of a home crowd, having lost both of their earlier home ice games in the series.
The Panthers rallied from 2-1 down to clinch a 4-2 win late in the third period. Aaron Ekblad and Seth Jones scored the tying and go-ahead goal 11 seconds apart before Carter Verhaeghe scored into an empty net to seal the win. Anton Lundell had scored the first goal of the game for Florida to take them 1-0 up in the second period.
“We haven’t had a lot of these this year,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said via NHL.com. “They have been grinders. It has been tough. We had key guys out of the lineup. … So, we don’t have the history of the comeback and that’s a little tougher. It was really important mentally to come back.’’
Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak scored for the Bolts, and keeper Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves.
“For 115 minutes, we passed every test possible. We just had a tough 11 seconds there at the end of the game. It’s unfortunate. We played well enough to win both games, and came up a little short,’ Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.
The Lightning also suffered a blow after forward Brandon Hagel was ruled out of Game 5 after taking an elbow to the face from Florida’s Aaron Ekblad during Game 4. Ekblad was handed a two-game suspension for the hit.
Panthers Potential Lineup
Forwards
Carter Verhaeghe – Aleksander Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Evan Rodrigues – Sam Bennett – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand
AJ Greer – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist
Defensemen
Gustav Forsling – Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola – Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis – Nate Schmidt
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
Lightning Projected Lineup
Forwards
Jake Guentzel — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Conor Geekie — Nick Paul — Yanni Gourde
Gage Goncalves — Anthony Cirelli — Darren Raddysh
Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening — Mitchell Chaffee
Defensemen
Victor Hedman — J.J. Moser
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson
Oddsmakers are split about which way Game 5 will go. BetMGM Sportsbook is giving even odds (Panthers -110 | Lightning -110). FanDuel has given the Panthers -105 and Lightning -114.
Key players to watch out for include Panthers’ forward Matthew Tkachuk (3 goals) and Bolts’ forward Jake Guentzel (5 points). Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov, who was the leading point-scorer in the regular season and has six assists in the playoff series, is also due for a goal.
