Aleksander Barkov scores twice as Panthers beat Lightning 6-1, advance to second round
SUNRISE — The Tampa Bay Lightning have been the Florida Panthers‘ big brother since the teams’ founding. The Lightning are a year older, and like most big brothers, they have hit some milestones first.
The Panthers got to the Stanley Cup Final before the Lightning ever sniffed it, but not long after, Tampa Bay pulled ahead and won not one, not two, but three Stanley Cups. In 2021, the two teams met in the playoffs for the first time. The Lightning won four games to two en route to a title. The next year, Tampa Bay swept them out of the postseason.
But now the Panthers finally have bragging rights over big brother, eliminating the Lightning from the playoffs with a 6-1 win at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, closing out a 4-1 series victory.
“You’ve have to slay the dragons,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “You’ve got to do the things that you haven’t been able to do to show forward … and progress. There was more pressure on our team.”
The Lightning, coming off a 6-3 win in Tampa on Saturday, appeared to strike first as Anthony Cirelli scored off a rebound. But Maurice challenged the goal for goaltender interference and won, resetting the score back to 0-0.
The two teams ended the first period scoreless, but Carter Verhaeghe ended that quickly. The winger took a shot, snagged his own rebound and sent a wrist shot past Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy 45 seconds into the second period. It was his fourth goal of the series.
Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov added to the lead with a short-handed goal with 7:22 left in the second period, but the Lightning got a power-play goal about a minute later. Defenseman Victor Hedman fired a shot past Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to cut the Lightning’s deficit back to one.
The Lightning thought they tied the game up late in the second period, but a Tampa goal was immediately waved off for interference. The Lightning tried to match the Panthers and challenge the call, but the call was confirmed. Florida kept its lead through the end of the second period.
Barkov added his second goal of the night with 8:54 left in the game, knocking a puck to the back of the net directly in front of Vasilevskiy. Monday’s performance was Barkov’s first career multi-goal game in the postseason.
“Barky’s our leader,” Verhaeghe said. “He leads the way out there, and we all follow him. He’s been unbelievable all year.”
Evan Rodrigues sealed the win with a dagger of a wrist shot following a pinpoint pass from Kevin Stenlund, giving the Panthers a 4-1 lead with 5:44 left in the game. Verhaeghe scored his second of the game on an empty-netter with 3:57 remaining, and Niko Mikkola added an empty-net goal with 1:10 remaining for good measure.
The Panthers will face the winner of the Boston Bruins-Toronto Maple Leafs series. The Bruins lead that series three games to one and will try to advance in Game 5 on Tuesday.
“When you win a rivalry series, it’s a big momentum booster,” Rodrigues said. “Well look to build off this. We’ll learn from everything we did this series and just bring it again next series, whoever we play.”