The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers will face each other in the NHL playoffs for the fourth time in five years. Game 1 of the Battle of Florida will begin on Tuesday, April 22. The Panthers and Bolts are familiar foes in recent years, with the winner of the series going on to reach the Stanley Cup Finals whenever the two teams have played one another in 2021, 2022, and 2024.
Projected Lineups for Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Florida Panthers
The Lightning and Panthers finished second and third, respectively, in the Atlantic Division this season. There’s very little separating the two teams. The Lightning have a 47-26-8 record and 102 points in the regular season to the Panthers’ 47-31-4 and 98 points. The season series between the two teams was dead even as well, with both going 2-2-0.
Florida, the defending Stanley Cup champions, have had key players out injured toward the latter half of the season. Star forward Matthew Tkachuk was placed on injured reserve after the best-on-best 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February. They were also without recent acquisition and former Boston Bruins star Brad Marchand for weeks after the trade deadline closed.
Moreover, the Panthers will be without forward Aaron Ekblad until Game 3, while he serves a 20-game suspension for violating the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program.
The Bolts, who were 5-2-3 in the final stretch, are making their eighth straight playoff appearance. They have the strongest offense in the NHL, having scored a league-high average of 3.6 goals per game in the regular season.
Tampa Bay will look to star player Nikita Kucherov, who is the NHL’s top point scorer with 37 goals and 84 assists for 121 points this season, to lead from the front.
“I think it’s great for hockey in Florida because there’s two elite teams,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said via NHL.com. “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.”
Lightning Projected Lineup
Forwards
Yanni Gourde — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel — Anthony Cirelli — Jake Guentzel
Gage Goncalves — Nick Paul — Conor Geekie
Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening
Defensemen
Victor Hedman — J.J. Moser
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix
Darren Raddysh
Goaltenders
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Jonas Johansson
Scratched
Mitchell Chaffee
Injured
Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower body)
Panthers Projected Lineup
Forwards
Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand
Evan Rodrigues — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist
Defensemen
Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
Scratched
Rasmus Asplund
Jonah Gadjovich
A.J. Greer
Tomáš Nosek
Matt Kiersted
Jaycob Megna
Injured
None
Suspended
Aaron Ekblad