Defending Cup champions embrace ‘completely different level of intensity’ to win East 1st Round
© Mark LoMoglio/NHLI via Getty Images
TAMPA — It was easy to have doubts about this Florida Panthers team.
They had played so much hockey. They had wilted down the stretch. They had been without Matthew Tkachuk for two-plus months. They were up against an onrushing train in the form of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
They can’t. They won’t. They shouldn’t.
But here’s the thing about the Panthers: This is a team that believes in itself, that knows how and when to turn the switch, how and when to give the extra effort and the extra inch that’s needed, how and when to smother an opponent and to come in waves and to make them look, well, like a far less skilled hockey team than they really are.
The Panthers were up against a very, very good team in the Eastern Conference First Round, a Lightning team that many picked to make — or win — the Stanley Cup Final. And instead of falling, instead of even a stretched-out, back-and-forth, battle royale of a series, the Panthers surgically dismantled the Lightning en route to taking their best-of-7 series in five games for the second straight year, wrapped up by a 6-3 win on Wednesday at Amalie Arena.
“We weren’t too hung up on the end of the regular season,” forward Brad Marchand said. “We have all been through it before and, once the playoffs start, it’s a completely different feeling and season, a completely different level of intensity.
“Guys focus so much harder than they do at the end of the regular season. Especially with this team, it’s gone to the Finals the last two years and won a Cup. … Sometimes when you already know you’re in the playoffs, sometimes the season just drags on.”
It is, perhaps, human nature.
As Game 1 approached, though, the Panthers knew what they had to do. It was time.
“We all know why we’re here,” Marchand continued. “We all know what we’re fighting for, we’re playing for. A lot of guys in this room got a really good taste of how good it feels to win and when you have that, you know what you need to sacrifice, you know how hard you need to push and you know the feeling that you’re chasing.
“There’s nothing that can replicate it, there’s nothing that can explain how good it feels and the pride that you have when you win. This team has felt that very recently.”
They reclaimed their stride, their playoff selves, immediately, finding ways to win that were different in each game: choking off the fifth-best power play in the NHL in the regular season (25.9), stifling the NHL’s best offense (3.56 goals per game), making highlight-reel saves (consecutive stops by Sergei Bobrovsky on Erik Cernak and Gage Goncalves at 4:19 and 4:20 of the second period in Game 5), hitting big and hard (too much so on Game 4 hits that resulted in a game misconduct for Niko Mikkola and a two-game suspension for Aaron Ekblad), winning back-and-forth games and defensive battles, shutting down stars who rarely get shut down.
They did it all.
“They have an exceptional team, not just an average team, they have an exceptional team,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I think two years ago they’re playing Boston and they’re down 3-1 to the Presidents’ Cup champs and they come back and win that series — they don’t win that series, who knows what happens to that team. They come back, they win, they get a good vibe about how to win because it is something that’s learned and it’s an art.”
With the chance to advance to the second round, to play the winner of the series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators, the Panthers knew they would have to withstand everything that the Lightning were going to throw at them.
And they got it, in the most back-and-forth game of the series, one in which the Lightning scored first — for the first time in the series — but the Panthers clawed back in, with a Carter Verhaeghe power-play goal at 5:21 of the first period and a puck that took a lucky bounce off the skate of Anton Lundell at 10:06.
Twice the Lightning would tie it up after that, on Nick Paul’s goal at 12:16 of the first period and then, after Aleksander Barkov’s first of the series 52 seconds into the second period, on their first power-play goal since Game 1 (Jake Guentzel, 9:57) following a Sam Bennett slashing call.
“The loneliest place in the world is in the penalty box when you’ve got to make that skate across the ice after you’ve given up a goal,” Florida coach Paul Maurice quipped.
But the Panthers kept pushing and the Lightning kept turning the puck over and it seemed inevitable that it would turn in Florida’s direction. It did. After another Bennett slashing penalty, the forward sprung out of the box in the perfect position to take a Lundell pass and snap a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy that would turn into the game-winner at 15:13 of the second.
“Definitely it’s not a good feeling being in the box twice there, especially after they scored one,” Bennett said. “A little anxious in the box there, but luckily was able to come out and Lundy made a great play to find me, and I was able to put it in. Definitely a little weight off my shoulders.”
It was another moment that added up and added up and added up until it resulted in a series win, a mature win, a knowing win. It was the win of a team that knew what it had to give, when it had to give, and how much it had to give.
“You have a goal every round and it’s to play at your best and take control of moments and be big when opportunities present themselves, like tonight,” Marchand said. “There’s so much experience in this room, a lot of guys that have been there and been through it and realize the importance of closing out a series when you have that opportunity.
“So guys did a great job. Even when they scored early, you could sit back, but we didn’t. We just continued to push and get better as the game went on.”
This Panthers team, the defending Stanley Cup champion, may not win a second consecutive Cup. It may not return to the Stanley Cup Final for the third consecutive season. It may not make it out of the second round.
But any doubts are gone. All questions have been answered.
“It’s not something that happens by accident,” Marchand said. “It’s because this team works. We earn it.”
🔹Ottawa Senators vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
🔹Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
🔹Montreal Canadiens vs. Washington Capitals
🔹New Jersey Devils vs. Carolina Hurricanes
🔹St. Louis Blues vs. Winnipeg Jets
🔹Colorado Avalanche vs. Dallas Stars
🔹Minnesota Wild vs. Vegas Golden Knights
🔹Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings

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