The Tampa Bay Lightning will face a familiar foe when the NHL playoffs begin this weekend.
The Lightning and Florida Panthers will meet in the latest Sunshine State showdown, with Game 1 in Sunrise on Saturday or Sunday. The schedule for the best-of-seven series has not been announced.
The matchup was finalized Tuesday night when the Panthers clinched the Atlantic Division title and nailed down the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. The Lightning previously earned the top wild-card position and No. 7 seed in the East.
“The best part of the season for sure,” Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy said of the postseason. “We all have to play our A-game and we’ll see what happens. There’s no bad teams in the playoffs.”
The state rivals have met twice in the postseason. The Lightning won in six games in the first round in 2021 and swept the Panthers in the second round in 2022.
“It's funny how things sometimes work out like that,” said Sam Bennett, who led the Panthers in scoring this season. “It's a great rivalry, I'm sure the fans will love it, and I'm definitely excited for it.”
Florida won the season series, 2-1, with the Panthers winning 3-2 on Dec. 27 and 9-2 on Feb. 17. The Lightning won 5-3 on March 16.
"It’s always fireworks when we play these guys, always a good game," said Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe, who was with the Lightning when they won the Stanley Cup in 2022. "They’re an awesome team and really skilled. They have all the elements of a really good team."
Games 1 and 2 will be at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, then move to Amalie Arena in Tampa for Games 3 and 4. Games 5 and 7, if necessary, are in Sunrise, and Game 6 in Tampa.
The Lightning (44-29-8) close the regular season Wednesday night at Amalie Arena against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Tampa Bay will try to break a three-game slide.
Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov needs one assist to become the fifth player in NHL history to reach 100 assists during a season. Kucherov would join Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Connor McDavid, who passed the milestone Tuesday night.
"He's the reason we are in the playoffs.," Vasilevskiy said. "Thank God he is playing on our team."
Toronto's Auston Matthews needs one goal to become the first player to score 70 goals in a season since Teemu Selanne and Alexander Mogilny had 76 in 1992-93.
The Panthers (52-24-6) finished their season with a four-game win streak after beating Toronto 5-2 on Tuesday to clinch the division.
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