SUNRISE, Fla. — Aleksander Barkov remembers the disappointment of years past.
The Tampa Bay Lightning had eliminated his Florida Panthers from the Stanley Cup playoffs in each of their previous three meetings, and if the Panthers wanted to cement themselves as one of the NHL’s best, this year’s result needed to be different.
“At some point you knew you were going to have them again,” Barkov said, “and you’ve got to be able to get over that hump, and we did it this year.”
Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe each had two goals and an assist to go along with 31 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky, and the Panthers beat the Lightning 6-1 in Game 5 on Monday night to clinch the first-round series and advance.
Niko Mikkola had a goal and an assist, Evan Rodrigues also scored and Matthew Tkachuk had two assists for the Panthers, who won a playoff series against Tampa Bay for the first time in franchise history and clinched a postseason series at home for only the fourth time. Florida bested Boston and Philadelphia on home ice in the first two rounds of the 1996 playoffs then eliminated Carolina at home in last season’s Eastern Conference finals en route to their second Stanley Cup Final appearance.
The Panthers didn’t downplay it: Monday night’s win meant a lot.
All three playoff series between the two teams have come in the past four years, with Tampa Bay winning the first one 4-2 in 2021 then sweeping Florida in 2022. The Panthers won the first three games this year before the Lightning avoided elimination with a 6-3 win in Game 4, forcing the Panthers to close out the series on home ice.
“This was a big series for us,” said Tkachuk, who had three goals and six assists in the series. “We always knew that for us ultimately to win it all, it was probably going to have to go through Tampa at some point, so just an amazing feeling closing it out at home.”
The Panthers made it past the opening round of the playoffs for a franchise-best third straight year. Florida has won five series over the past three postseason, the most among all teams over that span.
The Panthers’ six goals were their most in a series-clinching game in franchise history (previous high was four). It was also just the second time in team history that the Panthers had multiple multiple-goal scorers in a playoff game (first time was May 18, 1996 — Game 1 of Eastern Conference Finals vs. Pittsburgh — Tom Fitzgerald, Dave Lowry).
Victor Hedman scored for the Lightning,…
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