Lightning wanted to humble Panthers ahead of playoffs. Instead, it supercharged a rivalry
Jonathan Huberdeau admitted he was surprised with the way the Tampa Bay Lightning handled the penultimate of the regular against his Florida Panthers on Saturday.
The Lighting — the defending Stanley Cup champion, one of the best teams in hockey and a model franchise for the league — was the team to fall behind early and let its frustrations boil over in the form of at least one borderline dirty hit, another blatant cheap shot and 78 total penalty minutes.
The Panthers — headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs for only seventh time, without a postseason series win since 1996 and finally at the end of a half-decade absence from the traditional 16-team playoffs — were the ones who lead wire to wire, and seemed to smile whenever Tampa Bay tried to pick a fight in Florida’s 5-1 rout.
“When they leave the rink Monday,” Pat Maroon said earlier Saturday, “they should be thinking, Holy [expletive], we’re playing the Tampa Bay Lightning.”
His plan did not go well.
While the Tampa Bay winger dreamed of crushing the Panthers’ spirit in the final two games of the regular season, Joel Quenneville stayed humble.
Over and over Saturday, the coach fielded questions about the nature of the Florida rivalry. The Panthers and Lightning entered the NHL a year apart and both played in the Stanley Cup Finals in their first 15 years of existence. They’re the only two teams in the state and play just a few hours apart on opposite coasts. Every year, they tend to play one another more than any other team between division clashes and preseason tune-ups.
Until this year, they’ve never met in the Cup playoffs, though. Quenneville, who won three Stanley Cups as the Chicago Blackhawks’ coach, knows a rivalry can’t truly take flight until teams meet in the postseason and the playoff games have to be good.
Until Saturday, it was tough to view it as much of a rivalry in anything other than name. Quenneville was hesitant to hype it up and Tampa Bay certainly felt superior to its in-state foe.
“We made some inroads as far as trying to close that gap with them and I think that you only remember the playoff series,” Quenneville said Saturday. “Rivalries are formed with what happens in the playoffs, and this’ll be a good first step and a real jump in that direction.”
It started Saturday with Florida’s blowout win in Sunrise and it will continue Monday when the Panthers (36-14-5) close out the regular season at 7 p.m. against the Lightning (36-16-3) at the BB&T Center.
Second place in the Central Division is still at stake and Florida has the inside track. All it will take for the Panthers to clinch home-ice advantage for the first round is an overtime loss.
Wingers Patric Hornqvist and Carter Verhaeghe, and goaltender Chris Driedger should all be back for Florida and, while star defenseman Victor Hedman’s status is unknown for Tampa Bay, there’s still enough at stake to make Monday another potentially contentious game, especially after Lightning defenseman Luke Schenn leveled two questionable cross checks against forward Noel Acciari, Tampa Bay center Ross Colton tackled Owen Tippet and threw a cheap-shot punch at the right wing and the two teams combined for 10 misconduct penalties.
When the regular season wraps up, the two budding rivals will dive right into a best-of-7 first-round series. If the series goes the distance, the Panthers and Lightning will play nine straight games against each other.
For 27 years, Florida and Tampa Bay have waited for a chance to become more than just geographic rivals. The 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs are finally presenting the perfect chance.
The Panthers enter the regular-season finale with the fourth best points percentage in the league and are the NHL’s biggest surprise Cup contender, and the Lightning have a top-10 points percentage with eyes on defending its championship
If Florida can shift the balance of power in the state, it will be because it caught up to Tampa Bay, not because the Lightning fell off after winning its second title last year.
“We took a big step as a team this year,” star center Aleksander Barkov said Saturday. “Obviously, we know Tampa really well. We’ve played against them a lot this year and even last year. We’re going to play against them a lot this year moving forward, so we know them pretty well and they know us pretty well.
“It’s just going to be a battle.”
If Saturday was any indication, there won’t be any question about the state of the rivalry in the next few weeks.
“Both teams know we’re going to be facing one another,” Quenneville said. “Sometimes we go back to old-time hockey.”
This story was originally published May 9, 2021 at 11:20 AM.
