Panthers melt down in Game 4 against Lightning, fall to brink of another first-round exit
Alex Killorn stood in Sergei Bobrovsky’s crease as if it was his own. It might as well have been.
He raised his arms to the sky to celebrate the Tampa Bay Lightning’s increasingly insurmountable lead. It was another deflection from right in front of net for another power-play goal to beat the Florida Panthers’ more-maligned-than-ever $70-million goaltender and stretch the Lightning’s lead to three goals early in the second period.
Florida began Saturday with a chance to even its first-round series against its in-state rival and played most of the first period like a team ready to — except for the ambush Tampa Bay had ready. The Lightning scored on its first, third, sixth, 13th and 14th shots, chased Bobrovsky from Game 4 with 12:45 left in the second period and delivered the first blowout of the series with a 6-2 win in Tampa.
After the best regular season in franchise history, the Panthers are now one loss away from bowing out in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs once again after falling behind 3-1 in the series.
Florida will need to win three in a row against the reigning Stanley Cup champion — starting Monday with Game 5 back in Sunrise — to win its first postseason series since it reached the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals in its third season of existence.
There are questions about how the Panthers can shut down the Lightning power play. There are questions about who will be available after Florida piled up nine penalties and three misconducts in the third period. Above all, there are questions about the goaltending after the Panthers benched their starter midway through back-to-back games.
On Thursday, Florida’s two-goal, third-period comeback began after Chris Driedger gave up five goals on 12 shots in the second period and coach Joel Quenneville turned to Bobrovsky for the final 25:56 of the overtime win. It made Quenneville’s decision easy for Saturday: He was going to stick with Bobrovsky, who stopped all nine shots he faced in Game 4 to keep the Panthers from falling into a near-insurmountable three-game hole.
Bobrovsky spent most of the season as the No. 1 goalie, although he and Driedger mostly alternated starts to stay fresh in the condensed schedule. Driedger finished the regular season tied for fourth in save percentage, but Bobrovsky was better through three games of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs and is the highest paid player on the team, in the second season of a seven-year, $70-million contract.
After rallying from a two-goal deficit in the third period Thursday, Florida stuck with everything that worked. It meant Bobrovsky in goal and defenseman Keith Yandle scratched for the second straight game, two days after he missed his first game since 2009. It meant Anthony Duclair back on the top line next to star center Aleksander Barkov and fellow winger Carter Verhaeghe, just as they finished Game 4.
The Panthers even started with the line of unlikely heroes that won Game 4. Left wing Ryan Lomberg, center Noel Acciari and winger Frank Vatrano — the fourth line — stayed on the ice to start after they all contributed to the game-winning goal Thursday and they quickly got Florida to work on offense. The Panthers put the first three shots on goal and spent nearly the entire period playing in the offensive zone with a 15-7 edge in shots on goal, 17-8 edge in scoring chances and 24-11 edge in Corsi, which totals all shot attempts.
“We played well in their zone. We got some shifts in their zone, but they got the goals,” Barkov said. “They found a way to score goals and that’s unacceptable.”
In just three minutes, Florida still fell into a hole it couldn’t climb out of.
All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau scrapped with versatile Lightning forward Yanni Gourde in the opening three minutes, and Florida and Tampa Bay went into 4-on-4 action after a pair of roughing penalties. With 17 minutes left in the first, the Panthers’ defense broke down, star center Aleksander Barkov made an ill-timed line change, and Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli got a breakaway and beat Bobrovsky on Tampa Bay’s first shot of the game.
Less than four minutes later, Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov intentionally shot wide of net and Gourde deflected in another goal from the left doorstep to stretch Tampa Bay’s lead to 2-0 with 12:36 left in the first. It was only the Lightning’s third shot on goal of the game.
Huberdeau answered and cut the lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal 1:25 later after he drew an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty from Gourde, but Tampa Bay took a 3-1 lead into the first intermission after Ondrej Palat scored another deflection goal when Florida’s defense lost track of the Lightning left wing in front of the net with 3:15 left.
“I don’t think we give up a ton of chances,” defenseman Anton Stralman said. “The ones we do give up are just too good.”
Tampa Bay scored twice on its first six shots in the second period — once on a power-play deflection by Alex Killorn and again on a one-timer by the Lightning winger when the Panthers left him all alone — and Bobrovsky headed to the bench. Two days after he replaced Driedger at the end of the second period, his fellow goaltender came to replace him before the period was even half over. The celebration was on for the crowd of 9,762 inside Amalie Arena.
Florida had every reason to believe this season would actually be different. First-year general manager Bill Zito rebuilt the roster and four of the Panthers’ seven top scorers were newcomers. Quenneville, in his second year in South Florida, may well win the Jack Adams Award. The Panthers posted their best points percentage ever, were tied for their best-ever goal differential despite the shortened season and reached the traditional 16-team playoffs for only the sixth time.
Unless Florida can stage only the 30th 3-1 series comeback in NHL history, another season will still end the same way. The second round of the Cup playoffs will arrive and the Panthers won’t be a part of it.
An ugly ending
While Florida’s run has lasted longer than it usually does, it now has a chance for a particularly ugly ending in its first postseason series against the Lightning.
With a little more than nine minutes left and the Panthers down 6-2, Duclair slashed Kucherov, sending him back to the locker room with an injury. A couple minutes later, right wing Patric Hornqvist sent Tampa Bay defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to the locker room with an injury on a late hit.
A chippy third period like the one Saturday inevitably could lead to fines or even suspensions.
Quenneville said he felt there was “not much there for me,” but the Lightning were openly angered.
“We did what we had to do to get the lead and the hockey game ended at some point in the second. It turned into something different,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “If it’s not controlled, stuff like this happens tonight and you’ve got superstars lying on the ice hurt.
“Believe me: We’ll be bringing it two nights from now.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2021 at 3:29 PM.
