Five stats to know heading into the Panthers’ playoff series against the Lightning
The Florida Panthers begin the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs and their quest to repeat as Stanley Cup champions on Tuesday when they face the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena. Puck drop for Game 1 of the best-of-7 series is scheduled for 8:30 p.m., with the game televised nationally on ESPN and also broadcast locally on Scripps Sports.
It’s the fourth time in the past five years the in-state rivals are meeting in the postseason.
Here are five notable stats to know entering the series.
▪ 83.6%: The Panthers’ lineup returns 11 players from last season team that scored 61 of the team’s 73 goals in the postseason — or 83.6% of their playoff goals from their Cup run. This includes each of Florida’s top six goal scorers in Carter Verhaeghe (11), Sam Reinhart (10), Aleksander Barkov (eight), Sam Bennett (seven), Evan Rodrigues (seven) and Matthew Tkachuk (six). Only four players who scored goals for the Panthers last playoffs are no longer on the team in Vladimir Tarasenko, Brandon Montour, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz.
▪ .935: Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has a career .935 save percentage in 15 playoff games against the Panthers. He was other-worldly in Tampa Bay’s first two playoff series against Florida. Vasilevskiy stopped 210 of 226 shots he faced (.929 save percentage) in the first-round series in 2021 that the Lightning won in six games and 151 of 154 shots (.981 save percentage) in the Lightning’s second-round series sweep in 2022. Last season, he had just a .897 save percentage in the first round against Florida, with the Panthers scoring 16 goals on 156 shots against Vasilevskiy en route to winning the series 4-1.
▪ 5: The Panthers and Lightning have represented the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final in each of the past five seasons. Tampa Bay won it all in 2020 and 2021 before finishing as runner-up to the Colorado Avalanche in 2022. The Panthers fell to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023 before beating Edmonton for their first Stanley Cup last season. The only other states or provinces to feature a similar run of six or more consecutive postseasons are Quebec (10 from 1951 to 1960), Alberta (eight from 1983 to 1990) and New York (six from 1984).
▪ 70: Lightning coach Jon Cooper and Panthers coach Paul Maurice both enter with at least 70 career postseason wins. Cooper is 87-63 in 150 playoff games coached, while Maurice is 70-67 in 137 postseason games coached. The last playoff series to feature both head coaches having as many wins was Ken Hitchcock with the St. Louis Blues and Joel Quenneville with the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs.
The only other active coaches with at least 70 career playoff wins are the Dallas Stars’ Peter DeBoer (88) and the New Jersey Devils’ Lindy Ruff (71). Peter Laviolette, who on Saturday was fired as the New York Rangers’ head coach, also has 88 career playoff wins.
▪ 14: The Panthers have 14 players on their roster who have taken part in at least 50 career playoff games. Brad Marchand, acquired at the trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, leads the way with 157 career postseason appearances. Ten of Florida’s 14 players in this group have been on this team for both Stanley Cup Final runs over the past two seasons.
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