Florida Panthers’ dream season ends with another first-round exit vs. rival Lightning
Jonathan Huberdeau took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tilted his head backward when the final seconds ticked away on the Florida Panthers’ season.
The All-Star left wing’s career has been littered with early exits. This one was different. For six games in the first round of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs, he and the Panthers felt like they matched the Tampa Bay Lightning. They were the higher seed, and they almost always finished games with more shots on goal and scoring chances. It didn’t matter: After a 4-0 loss to the Lightning on Wednesday in Tampa, Florida is once again done before the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“Obviously, disappointed. I thought we had our chances in this series, could’ve went either way,” the All-Star left wing said. “It’s going to take a little bit to swallow this one.”
After a few seconds, he exhaled, bit his lower lip to fight back any emotion and watched the Lightning celebrate another first-round victory, then he headed back to the dressing room and changed into a suit before even sitting down for his postgame interview. He was ready to stop thinking about how a uniquely promising season ended for Florida.
Less than three weeks after hitting near-unprecedented heights by sweeping a two-game series with the Lightning at the end of the regular season to clinch the No. 2 seed in the Central Division and set a franchise record for points percentage, the Panthers’ season is once again over before the second round of the Cup playoffs. After falling into a two-game series hole and turning to a 20-year-old goaltender for a pair of must-win games this week, Florida’s run ended with a 4-2 series loss in the first ever playoff meeting with its in-state rival.
Spencer Knight, the rookie goalie who kept the Panthers’ season alive with a 36-save performance in Game 5 on Monday, gave up a goal on the first shot he faced and Florida never recovered in front of a hostile crowd of 10,092 at Amalie Arena.
Two days after winning their first elimination game since 1996, the Panthers are headed home. They still haven’t won a playoff series since reaching the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals in their third season of existence and haven’t even been to a Game 7 in the first round since the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Huberdeau, 27, has won just five postseason games in nine seasons despite entering Wednesday leading the NHL with 10 playoff points. Star center Aleksander Barkov, 25, has also won only five playoff games in eight seasons and didn’t put a shot on goal until the third period Wednesday.
With only its sixth ever trip to the traditional 16-team Cup playoffs, Florida still put together one of the most successful seasons in franchise history, but the year once again ends without any sort of postseason success, even as the Panthers generated 40 more shots on goal than Tampa Bay, 70 more scoring chances and 22 more high-danger chances. They had more shots on goal, scoring chances and high-danger chances in 5 of 6 games, and more expected goals in all six.
“Before the playoffs, we were one of the contenders. We played really great hockey in the regular season, we showed everyone what we’re capable of,” Barkov said. “We played really good hockey in the playoffs. I know we didn’t win games, but we played pretty good hockey ... just couldn’t win games.
“That’s the point of hockey. You’ve got to win games, but we only won two. You’ve got to win four.”
The Lightning ultimately outscored Florida, 24-17, in the series with a 19-13 edge in goals on scoring chances and a 14-7 edge on high-danger chances. Star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy finished the series with a .929 save percentage for Tampa Bay, while the Panthers’ three goaltenders combined for a .881 mark.
The move to Knight briefly changed the series, only it happened after the margin for error shrunk too thin. Knight made 36 saves on 37 shots Monday and 20 on 23 in the loss Wednesday. Vasilevskiy, who’s likely to win the Vezina Trophy for the second time in three years, delivered a gem of his own with 29 saves in the other net to send the defending champion back into the second round for the fifth time in seven seasons.
“We needed to get that first one,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “He was great tonight.”
For the second straight game, the Lightning beat Knight on its very first shot of the game.
In Game 5, it meant a one-goal lead just 53 seconds into the game. On Wednesday, it took more than six minutes for Tampa Bay to finally test the rookie. Lightning forward Tyler Johnson beat the Panthers to a puck behind the goal to negate an icing call and flipped it in front of the net, past star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar and to Tampa Bay winger Pat Maroon, who jammed home the opening goal to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead with 13:44 left in the first.
Until Tampa Bay opened the scoring, the Panthers and Lightning mostly traded fruitless possessions, with only two total shots on goal in the first six and a half minutes. After it broke through, Tampa Bay put together a repeat performance of its first period Monday.
The Lightning fired eight shots at Knight in the opening period, generated 12 scoring chances and four high-danger chances, and beat the goalie once. Tampa Bay even got a power play late in the first period and Knight helped kill off the first 1:05 before the first intermission began, then finished the kill in the second period.
Florida started to swing play back in its favor in the second, just like two days earlier. It outshot the Lightning, 13-7, with a 18-10 advantage in scoring chances and 6-3 advantage in high-danger chances. Still, the Panthers could never beat Vasilevskiy and Tampa Bay’s power play delivered a second-period dagger with 6:33 left.
After Florida’s first kill Wednesday, the Lightning fell to 0 for 3 on the power play against Knight, but its extra-man unit was too potent to stay silent forever. Versatile forward Sam Bennett committed a foolish roughing penalty against David Savard, ripping the helmet off the head of the Tampa Bay defenseman after the two got tied up, and Steven Stamkos finished a perfectly executed power play with a shot from the left faceoff circle.
The Lightning went 8 of 19 on power plays in the series, while the Panthers went 6 of 22, including an 0-for-2 performance Wednesday.
With its season on the line, Florida got shut out for the first time since April.
This Panthers team, as players and coaches claimed all year, truly was different, but the ending was still the same.
“That’s the most fun I’ve had, this year,” Huberdeau said. “We had a good group, it just didn’t go our way.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 10:36 PM.
