Florida Panthers Face, New-Look Rejuvenated Tampa Bay Lightning to Kick Off Playoffs
The Tampa Bay Lightning will present a big challenge to the Florida Panthers in their Stanley Cup title defense after their bold offseason moves paid dividends — big time.
FORT LAUDERDALE — When the Florida Panthers eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning from the postseason last year, general manager Julien BriseBois made some bold moves to reinforce his roster.
BriseBois let longtime Lightning captain Steven Stamkos walk in free agency just after putting together a 40-goal season, opting to sign former Penguins and Hurricanes star Jake Guentzel instead.
It was a move that garnered a lot of scrutiny, specifically about locker room dynamics, but the Lightning machine kept churning on and continued to be one of the most dominant teams in the NHL.
Guentzel slid right in and put together a 41-goal, 81-point season of his own, Tampa Bay’s power play still finished fifth in the league without Stamkos’ prolific one-timer and the Lightning scored the most goals (292) in the NHL.
The challenge for the Panthers is still very much the same as it has been the three other teams they have seen the Lightning in the past five years.
“We know they are an amazing team and they have played well for a long time,” Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said. “They have amazing players there, so it doesn’t change the fact that they are and that they have been one of the best teams in the league for a long time, so it’s a hard challenge no matter who plays for them.
“Obviously, Stamkos was there for a long time and we know how valuable of a player he is. It’s a little bit different of a look, but it’s the same Tampa Bay Lightning, same rival, and these are going to be some hard and fun games for sure.”
For as big of a change as it was, it did not affect Tampa Bay’s bottom line whole lot.
What it really did was extend the championship window for a team which has already made the Stanley Cup Final three times and won the Stanley Cup twice in the past five season by replacing a 35-year-old with a 30-year-old.
The Lightning’s biggest structural change did not garner as much headlines, but it patched up a major hole from last year’s team.
Tampa Bay shipped off top pairing defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to Utah for J.J. Moser and used the salary cap savings from that move to re-acquire Ryan McDonagh to bring stability to its bottom pairing.
The result: A Lighting team which allowed the fourth-fewest goals (218) in the NHL in 2024-25 after it allowed the 10th-most goals (267) the previous season.
“I think bringing McDonagh back on the blue line put their structure back in place,” coach Paul Maurice said. “He’s back with Cernak, they can run seven [defensemen]. They adjusted back to their form from years earlier, some of it systematically, they changed back to their game.
“I think that was the move that made them look more like their team.”
Structurally, the Lightning are sounder defensively while the shift from Stamkos to Guentzel makes them a faster team offensively that feeds off taking advantage of the opposing team’s mistakes.
With Andrei Vasilevskiy putting together his best regular season since the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season — finishing 38-20-5 with a .921 save percentage and a 2.18 goals-against average — the Panthers are facing a hard test very early on in their quest to defend their 2024 Stanley Cup title.