Previewing the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers first-round series (2025)

Pre-season, regular season, post-season. It doesn’t matter the season, the Tampa Bay Lighting and the Florida Panthers have played each other in all of them. There may not be two teams that know each other better in the NHL. For the second season in a row, and the fourth out of the last five, the two teams will meet in the post-season. For better or worse, whichever team has won the series, has gone on to represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final. The road to glory has gone through the swamps of Florida every season since 2020, and there is no reason to think this year will be any different.

When we do these previews, we normally like to just look at how the teams have performed over the last month or so. After all, what a team is doing in October isn’t the same as what they’re doing in April. However, in this case, due to the players that the Panthers have been missing over the last month of play, it’s not really fair to judge them based on that performance. In this rare case, the two team’s performance over the whole season might be a better representation for the upcoming series.

With the standard caveat that we can throw a lot of the regular season out once the playoffs begin, the story of hockey in Florida for 2024-25 has been one of two very good teams that might have, at times, not played up to their full potential. Both teams were assumed to make the playoffs, and the regular season seemed to be a trial run for this moment right now. The Panthers are the defending champs, but it seemed like some of their luster was knocked off as the price of winning chipped away at some of their defensive and offensive depth as key players absconded to different organizations and bigger paychecks.

The Lightning, after their second disappointing first-round exit in a row, retooled their team on the fly to improve their 5-on-5 play. A couple of big trades in the summer helped their defense, but also made them a little younger. Bringing in Jake Guentzel to address some of their 5v5 scoring issues might have cost them a legacy player in Steven Stamkos, but built a better, more balanced team. At the deadline, they spilled a copious amount of draft-pick blood for Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand to increase their depth up front, and build a more playoff-ready team.

The results were there. This team drastically improved offensively and defensively at 5v5. Yes, their special teams shed a little of their dominance. That’s a trade-off any coach will take, especially considering the special teams were still top-ten in the league. Last year, the Lightning tried to outscore their problems, this year they’re taking the more sensible approach of keeping the puck out of their own net.

Let’s plunge a little deeper into the match-up to see how the teams stack up this year.

The Lightning’s offense vs. the Panthers’ defense:

Lightning				Panthers
Stat	Rank	Advantage	Rank	Stat
5v5 Goals For	3		4	5v5 Goals Against
5v5 xGF	13		2	5v5 xGA
Scoring Chances	11		1	Scoring Chances Against
Shots For	15		3	Shots Against
HDCF	9		3	High Danger Chances Against
Power Play	5		10	Penalty Kill
Shooting Percentage	4		10	Save Percentage

The biggest reason that most of the pundits are picking the Tampa Bay Lightning to win the series lies in their improved 5v5 play this season. Last year, they went against the top-ranked 5v5 defense with a patchwork offense that struggled when things were even (the Bolts were 15th in 5v5 goals last year). This season we have as close to a best-on-best scenario that we can have, with Tampa Bay having the slightest of edges, thanks largely to the late-season swoon by the Panthers.

While a lot of emphasis was placed on the difference between the 5v5 production between Steven Stamkos and Jake Guentzel, there was a general improvement from all of the top-six forwards, with the exception of Brayden Point:

While it was nice having Guentzel on the top line scoring goals, it was the 12 additional goals at 5v5 from Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel that helped the Bolts out the most. Not only were they usually taking on the other team’s top lines, they were getting the better of them. The duo spent about 962 minutes together on the ice and posted an expected goals per 60 of 3.33 while allowing opponents an expected goals of just 2.07.

If they can keep that kind of split going against the Panthers, they could be the key to a Lightning victory, especially if they’re matched up against Florida’s top line. Moving Jake Guentzel to that line gives them a little more offense, and will force Paul Maurice to pick his poison in regards to keeping his top defenders out against Cirelli and company or the duo of Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov.

All that being said, it’s not going to be easy against the Panthers. Even if their defense isn’t as good as it was last year, it’s still one of the best in the league. The Bolts catch a break with Aaron Ekblad scheduled to miss the first two games as he serves the rest of his suspension, but Aleksander Barkov is still on the team, and he is going to spearhead their effort to make the Lightning’s life a tedious slog.

Florida just doesn’t give their opponents anything. Seriously. Nothing. Look at this heat map:

They defend against the rush well, they cover the middle of the ice well, it’s tough to establish a cycle against them, it’s generally just a pain in the ass to try and accomplish anything against them. One thing the Lightning can do to alleviate some of those obstacles is to win the turnover battle in the neutral zone. Florida does like to fly the zone and try and get their forwards behind their opponent’s defense. If the Lightning can disrupt them at center ice or at the blue lines, and quickly pivot to offense, they can exploit the gaps and build up some chances.

Tampa Bay hasn’t been dominating in any one style of offense this year, but they’ve been pretty good at a lot of things. They can attack off of the rush, they can cycle the puck back to the point for shots. They don’t have to force their way to the high-danger spots in order to score thanks to some of the shooting talent they have on the team. That being said, they do a lot of their damage from right in front of the net, especially players like Cirelli and Point.

To be successful they’re going to have to move the puck quickly and make sure to get their initial point shots through the first layer of defense.They have to make Sergei Bobrovsky work at stopping second chances, and fight their way through the forest of oak trees the Panthers have on defense.

If they can get shots from the point early on, that will draw the Florida forwards out to the blueline in an attempt to block them, and open up spots in the middle of the ice for Kucherov and others to slip their passes through. Quick, decisive decisions with the puck will be the key to their success.

The Lightning’s defense vs. the Panthers’ offense:

Panthers				Lightning
Stat	Rank	Advantage	Rank	Stat
5v5 Goals For	22		6	5v5 Goals Against
5v5 xGF	5		15	5v5 xGA
Scoring Chances	12	Tie!	12	Scoring Chances Against
Shots For	4		23	Shots Against
HDCF	15		8	High Danger Chances Against
Power Play	13		6	Penalty Kill
Shooting Percentage	29		4	Save Percentage

Why do we feel a little better about the Lightning’s chances this year? Well, the chart above sums it up pretty well. Tampa Bay’s overall improvement defensively puts them on equal ground with the defending champs. Last year, the hope was that the Bolts could outscore any problems they had on defense coupled with the need for Andrei Vasilevskiy to stand on his head. Well, they couldn’t, and Florida took them out in five games (albeit, the games were fairly close).

This season, the Bolts are much, much better at keeping the puck out of their own net. Reuniting Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak has helped, but the support from the forwards in their own zone has been a big asset. Yes, Vasilevskiy has returned to the Vezina-finalist form that we’re used to, but he’s also getting a lot of help from the players in front of him.

It’s not quite as dominating as the Florida defense, but they’ve done a good job of suppressing shots from dangerous areas. Compare it to last year’s heat map:

Vasilevskiy is facing shots from less dangerous areas and he’s stopping them. Stopping the initial shot and letting the defense prevent any rebound opportunities was a hallmark of the Cup-winning teams. The Lightning will let a team shoot from the perimeter all day long as long as they can keep the defensive shape in front of Vasy. Eliminating those red spots 10-20 feet outside of the net comes not only from better play from the defenders, but also the forwards dropping down to break up those attempts.

If crisp passing is the key to generating offense against Florida, the same goes for preventing their offense. The Panthers are an excellent forechecking team. The Lightning are…well…less than excellent against the forecheck. They get into trouble when teams pressure them. It hasn’t been as bad this season, but when they’ve struggled, a failure to clear the puck has been the number one cause. Florida isn’t going to ease up on them. The forwards need to give their defenders options so they can’t fly the zone too early. Meanwhile, the Lightning blueliners have to be quick with the puck. If the pass isn’t there, flip it out to open space.

The Panthers’ big guns did a lot of damage against the Lightning last year as Carter Verhaeghe had 5 goals while Sam Reinhart and Matthew Tkachuk had 3 each. However, they also had scoring up and down the roster as 18 of the 20 skaters that suited up had at least one point and 11 different players scored at least one goal. Can they match that depth this year after losing their entire fourth line?

Florida, much like Carolina, is a volume team. They will shoot early and often and then try to outwork the defenders to jam home rebounds and loose pucks. The Panthers were third in attempted shots over the regular season with 4,260, but their 7.72% shooting percentage was 29th, and they were middle-of-the-pack in regards to high-danger and scoring chances. It’s not a complicated offense, but it works for them, especially with their defense.

Much like the Lightning, they aren’t going to rely on just one line to score. They had five 20-goal scorers on the roster this year, and Matthew Tkachuk’s return gives them two solid scoring lines. Brad Marchand isn’t what he once was, but as a third-line pest, he could be a thorn in the Lightning’s side.

The unknowables

The numbers can give us some idea of how a series might play out. Every thing we’ve seen would indicate it’s going to be a low-scoring series, and we haven’t even really talked about the goaltending. Yes, the Lightning should have the edge in net, but Sergei Bobrovsky does what he needs to do to keep the puck on the right side of the goal line.

Things are going to happen that can’t be anticipated. Injuries, bad calls, line brawls, etc. Is Tkachuk going to be able to jump right back in after missing more than a month of action? How will Ekblad’s return alter the defense? Can the Lightning rookies take it to the next level as the game speeds up on them? All of these questions could have a huge effect on the series.

Another big question will be the effect of the two long postseason runs the Panthers have had as they made it to the Stanley Cup Final in back-to-back seasons. Lightning fans are more than familiar with how lengthy playoff runs and short off-seasons can add up and wear teams down. The shoe is on the other foot for this season. The Lightning are relatively fresh after a couple of first-round exits. They’re also eager to prove those early summer vacations are behind them.

More so than the last few seasons, this Lightning team is built for a playoff run. Solid goaltending, good defense, and balanced even-strength scoring can propel a team far at this time of the year. Are they perfect? No. Do they get into their own way at times? Yes. However, there is enough on the roster to make it out of the opening round.

Our prediction – Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.