Panthers blown out by Lightning in final game before break as tempers flare in third
Thursday might have the night that unofficially pushed the Florida Panthers too far out of contention to keep their Stanley Cup playoff hopes alive.
If nothing else in their 6-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Panthers went out swinging — more so physically than with their actual performance on the ice.
Brawls highlighted the third period, with a pair of scrums just over four minutes into the final frame leading to nine people receiving misconducts, including Panthers coach Paul Maurice.
That major scrum began when star Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk elbowed Lightning star Nikita Kucherov far away from the puck. At that point, Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel and Tkachuk dropped the glove and exchanged punches. Florida defenseman Gustav Forsling and Tampa Bay defenseman J.J. Moser fought as well.
Forsling and Florida’s Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe and Donovan Sebrango received misconducts when the dust settled. So did Tampa Bay’s Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Darren Raddysh and Yanni Gourde.
Maurice received a game misconduct, too.
Florida, playing without Brad Marchand, Evan Rodrigues and Aaron Ekblad (on top of the already long list of players sidelined), was already down 4-0 at that point and the deficit became 5-0 when Tampa Bay’s Pontus Holmberg scored in the dying seconds of the ensuing power play it received from the fracas. Hagel, Zemgus Girgensons, Guentzel and Erik Cernak also scored for Tampa Bay.
And to add injury to the insult: Goaltender Daniil Tarasov had to be helped off the ice after giving up the fifth goal, just the latest injury for the Panthers in a season full of them.
Mackie Samoskevich scored for Florida with 10:10 remaining to break up Andrei Vasilevskiy’s shutout.
But the writing was already on the wall for the game — and now, perhaps, Florida’s season.
The Panthers are 29-25-3 entering the Olympic Break and lost five of their final six games. With 61 points, they are eight points back of the Boston Bruins (32-20-5, 69 points) for the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot with 25 games left to play. There are five teams between the Panthers and the Bruins.
They’re not officially out of the running just yet, but a miracle run is going to be needed when play resumes after the Olympics for Florida to have any chance to sneak into the playoffs and have any chance to compete for a third consecutive Stanley Cup.
This story was originally published February 5, 2026 at 10:28 PM.
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