‘Belief is a dangerous thing’: How the Panthers rallied to take a 3-1 series lead over the Lightning
The Florida Panthers never wavered. Not after seeing their lead disappear when they gave up two goals in 11 seconds midway through the second period. Not after they had to muster through a five-minute penalty kill early in the third period and play the entire final frame down a defenseman. Not after they failed to get much of anything going for most of that third period and saw their first attempt at a potential game-tying goal overturned.
There was still time on the clock. There was still a chance to make something happen.
They weren’t counting themselves out.
“Belief is a dangerous thing,” veteran forward Brad Marchand said, “and we had that. You could feel it.”
That belief turned into results.
The Panthers scored twice in a span of 11 seconds late in the third period, with Aaron Ekblad tying the game and Seth Jones scoring the game-winner as Florida rallied to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 on Monday at Amerant Bank Arena in Game 4 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoffs series.
The late push produced a seismic shift in the series. The Panthers now head to Tampa for Game 5 on Wednesday with a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series when it was looking like the series was going to be level at two games apiece.
“We’ve been through moments like this before,” Marchand said. “I think that the one thing you see in the room with the group is just the level of calm throughout the game. It’s nerve-wracking, but those are the moments that you need to enjoy during playoff time. That’s when guys can be big.”
And there were plenty of big moments down the stretch that helped make the comeback come to fruition, which was needed after the Lightning scored goals from Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak at 12:21 and 12:32 in the second period to take a 2-1 lead.
It started with the penalty kill, which has been one of the Panthers’ strengths throughout the series. Florida’s Niko Mikkola was handed a five-minute major and game misconduct 19 seconds into the third period for boarding Lightning forward Zemgus Girgensons. If Tampa Bay capitalized at any point during that five-minute stretch, any chance of a Florida comeback would have been nullified.
Instead, the Panthers’ penalty killers stepped up again. The Lightning managed one shot on goal during that stretch with an extra attacker. Florida is 14 for 15 on the penalty kill so far this series, and the Panthers have allowed just 13 total shots on goal over the four game when playing down a skater.
“It started with the kill,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “That was such an important piece to the game.”
It continued with Ekblad. The top-pair defenseman, playing in just his second game following a 20-game suspension, appeared to have scored the game-tying goal on the power play with 12:58 left to play, but the tally was overturned after the play was deemed offside.
Ekblad then successfully struck on his second effort a little more than nine minutes later with an all-around effort to tie the game. He kept the puck in the offensive zone when the Lightning tried to clear it and then sent a drop pass to Sam Reinhart along the boards before pushing toward the net. Reinhart then found Ekblad in the slot, where he used some fancy handwork up close before beating Andrei Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot to tie the game at 2-2.
“Some great patience,” Maurice said. “Good for him. He does a great job of getting up the ice and timing when to go in to take that chance. He’s an important part of what we do.”
And then it was Jones delivering the game-winning strike on the next shift. Florida won the ensuing faceoff and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov dumped the puck into the offensive zone. The puck fluttered around the boards before finding its way back to Jones, whose snap shot from the point bounced off a screened Vasilevskiy and into the net.
“I just had to put it to the net,” Jones said. “Vasy played well, so anything we can put to the net, we talked about pregame, we’re going to do that with bodies and traffic.”
Florida’s defense shut things down from there, allowing just one shot on goal the rest of the way and then sealing the game with a Carter Verhaeghe empty-net goal.
The Panthers had a chance to make something happen.
They didn’t count themselves out.
And now, they’re one win away from taking the next step in their Stanley Cup title defense.
“A lot of things happened at the end in a good way for us,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “We pushed pretty much the whole period for that and got a couple bounces. Our effort was there.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 11:27 PM.
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