Bolts draw tough test in matchup vs. Presidents’ Trophy-winning Cats

The Panthers enter the series as this year’s Presidents’ Trophy winner after collecting 122 points in the regular season and scoring a league-high 337 goals, 25 more than the next-closest team. Their power play was clicking at 24.4%, tied for fifth-best in the NHL, and they led the league with 37.3 shots per game.

Similar to the Maple Leafs, the Panthers are a high-octane offensive juggernaut, but they may have a deeper lineup than Toronto.

At the top, Florida has been led by left winger Jonathan Huberdeau, who ranked second (tied) in the NHL with 115 points this season. He led all skaters in assists, recording 85 helpers in 80 games. Since the 1999-2000 NHL season, only two players have recorded more assists in a single season.

Now a teammate of Huberdeau’s, Joe Thornton recorded two 90-plus assist seasons, once in 2006-07 (92) and the other in 2005-06 (96).

Nikita Kucherov picked up 87 assists and 128 points during his legendary 2018-19 season. The Lightning’s star winger added 41 goals that year, finishing with 128 points and capturing the Art Ross Trophy. The 128 points still remains the most in a single season during the 21st century and the most ever by a Russian-born skater. His 87 assists also remain tied for the most all-time by a winger in one season.

Kucherov has gotten off to a hot start in this year’s postseason, leading the Bolts with eight points (2G, 6A) through seven games. It’s nothing new for Kucherov, who sits alone in first place for most points all-time in Tampa Bay postseason history with 135 points (46G, 89A) in 120 games.

Another player who leads their franchise in all-time playoff points is Florida’s big, Finnish center, Aleksander Barkov. The Panthers’ captain picked up 88 points in just 67 games this season, scoring 39 goals and adding 49 assists. Barkov finished the season averaging 1.31 points per game, the exact same as Steven Stamkos, who scored 42 goals and recorded 64 assists for a career-best 106 points. Barkov’s 20 points in 22 postseason games are the most in franchise history.

Video: The Wraparound | Round 2 Game 1 vs Florida Panthers

The Lightning will surely have their hands full with Barkov, who plays an elite 200-foot game and took home the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward in 2020-21.

“He’s a complete player,” said Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman. “Great speed, very skilled, plays in all situations and can be physical as well. He’s the whole package.

“He’s one of the best players in this league for a reason. It’s always a challenge going up against him.

“At the end of that day, we’re looking at the whole picture, but you obviously have to pay attention when he’s on the ice. He can make some great plays and he’s very good on the PK as well. Good faceoff guy, just a complete player, so a great challenge for us.”

The Panthers would likely acknowledge that Hedman will be just as big of a challenge for them. Hedman is coming off the best regular season of his career, recording career-highs in nearly every major category. He currently ranks second in points among all Tampa Bay skaters this postseason with seven (2G, 5A).

During the regular season, the big Swede picked up 20 goals and 65 assists for 85 points after skating in all 82 games. Hedman is currently in his 13th NHL season, all with Tampa Bay, and he knows that these opportunities, like the one the Lightning have now, don’t come around often.

“It’s a tough league,” Hedman explained on Monday. “It’s tough to make the playoffs, but it’s even tougher to have success in the playoffs.

“Going through that first round is obviously going to gain the confidence of the group and the guys that haven’t been in this situation before. To get through that series helps a lot.

“Now we’re one step closer to where we want to be with a great opponent facing us. Another tough challenge.

“It doesn’t matter how many games it takes. We’re a determined group and we’re looking forward to having a great battle.”

The Lightning and Panthers have played in so many entertaining games over the past few years, highlighted by last year’s playoff series. But the intensity didn’t start in the postseason. These two teams have had some great battles and they’ve seen each other a ton. If there’s one thing we know about this series for sure, it’s that it won’t lack emotion.

“There’s definitely some animosity,” said Bolts forward Alex Killorn. “When you play a team as much as we’ve played Florida, it’s not just in the playoffs. We play them so much in the season, so many exhibition games.

“You just end up building a certain animosity against a team like that, just due to the fact that you play each other so much.”

Speaking with the media on Monday, Killorn echoed a lot of the same things that Hedman said. They know this is going to be a tough challenge against a very talented Florida team.

“It’s going to be exciting,” Killorn said. “I think for them, we knocked them out last year, so there might be a little bit of a chip on their shoulder.

“For us, it’s the same thing. We want to try to make history.

“They’ve made some great acquisitions. When you look at what they’ve done at the deadline, they’re definitely going for it. There’s no denying that. I think they’ve added some veteran guys that have really helped them out.

“They’re going to be tough.”

Florida enters this series after defeating the Washington Capitals in six games in the first round. They scored an NHL-best 20 goals at five-on-five to kick off their postseason.

A big part of that success was former Tampa Bay forward Carter Verhaeghe, who posted 12 points for Florida in the opening round with six goals and six assists, setting franchise records for both goals and points in a single playoff round. Verhaeghe netted the game-winning goal in the final three victories for Florida against Washington.

Verhaeghe’s opening-round surge just speaks to the depth that this Panthers team has. The Lightning will have to be ready for a different test than last year.

“They’re deeper,” Hedman explained. “Obviously got over the hurdle of getting through the first round. They won the Presidents’ Trophy for a reason. They’re a great hockey team.

“Good goaltending. They got Ekblad back, which is obviously helping them. Verhaeghe, 12 or 13 points in the first round, speaks a lot about the depth that they have. I don’t think he’s the first guy that people look at when they’re looking at the forwards up front.

“Like I said, very deep up front. Four lines, great pace and especially the first two lines. Great skill and they can put the puck in the net. It’ll be a great challenge for us, but one that we’re very much looking forward to.”

As for Verhaeghe specifically, Hedman is happy to see his old teammate thriving with the Panthers, but that doesn’t change the mentality going into the second round.

“He’s obviously in a different situation there than he was here,” Hedman said. “We knew he had the skillset, but doing it on a consistent basis for the last two seasons proves that he’s a tremendous player in this league.

“You’re very happy for him to have that success, but we’ve got to stop it now.”

Tampa Bay played a lot of special teams in their opening-round series against Toronto. The Bolts finished the series with a 21.2 power-play percentage, scoring seven goals on 33 opportunities. This may be a spot where the Bolts have the upper hand on Florida.

Florida finished the first round with the worst power-play percentage of all 16 teams, logging a 0% success rate with the man advantage. The Panthers had 18 chances on the power play, but failed to convert on any of them.

Florida wasn’t necessarily a top performer on the penalty kill either, finishing the opening round at 70.8%, good for 12th place of the 16 playoff teams.

The Lightning faced a really tough test in the opening round against a Toronto power play that led the NHL in power-play percentage during the regular season.

The Bolts concluded the opening round killing off 85.7% of the Leafs’ power plays, good for sixth-best among postseason teams.

Statistically, Tampa Bay has the advantage over Florida on special teams, but they’ll likely have to do it without a key piece on their power play, Brayden Point. The Lightning center went down with a lower-body injury in Game 7 against Toronto and was described as “highly doubtful” for Game 1 by Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper.

“Obviously, the power play’s a little bit different entering the zone,” explained Killorn. “He’s great for us in terms of entering the zone on the power play.

“He was playing the shutdown role against Matthews for most of that Toronto series, so that’s going to be kind of tough to replace in that sense. We had Nick Paul jump into that role in the Toronto game and he did a great job.

“It’s a next man up mentality. Pointer brings a ton to this team. I think you guys know how much he brings, but that’s just the adversity that we have to deal with here.

“Luckily in the past, we’ve dealt with this in the season, so we can kind of draw upon certain experiences, but he’s a big-time player. He makes a lot of big-time plays, so it will be tough to replace him.”

Regardless of the lineup that Tampa Bay puts on the ice, it’s going to be a tough series against a very strong opponent. The Bolts have the playoff experience on their side and they’ll look to draw from that.

Sometimes, the opening round can be the hardest to get through. The Bolts feel that the seven-game series against the Leafs was a great building block to begin their postseason pursuit of a third-straight Stanley Cup.

“It was good for our team to get through a series like that,” Killorn said. “It was a difficult series. When you think about that first game, we just showed up so flat, but we kept getting better and better.

“I think we played one of our best games in Game 7, where you just have to find a way to win.

“Game 7’s are tough. It could have gone either way, but I’m happy we went through it and I think we’re a stronger team because of it.”

After watching last year’s series, how can hockey fans not be pumped up for this year’s showdown between two of the best teams in the league?

The stage has been set. Now it’s time to get things going.

“I think people, especially in Florida, have been begging for the two teams to be contenders and go at it,” said Cooper. “I think last year, many people said that might have been the series of the playoffs.

“They’ve retooled their team and brought some big names in there and it should be a ton of fun. They’re fun to play against.

“It’s competitive as hell and it’s really good for hockey.”