The Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers meet Tuesday in game 1 of the East Second Round NHL Playoffs at the FLA Live Arena. The Tampa Bay Lightning are coming off a seven-game series with the Maple Leafs. The Florida Panthers are coming off a six-game series with the Capitals.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are averaging 3.29 goals per game and are scoring on 21.2 percent of their power play opportunities. Ondrej Palat leads Tampa Bay with 3 goals, Nikita Kucherov has 6 assists and Victor Hedman has 27 shots on goal. Defensively, the Tampa Bay Lightning are allowing 3.43 goals per game and are killing 85.7 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up 22 goals on 214 shots faced.
The Florida Panthers are averaging 3.33 goals per game and are scoring on 0 percent of their power play opportunities. Carter Verhaeghe leads Florida with 6 goals, Claude Giroux has 4 assists and Aleksander Barkov has 22 shots on goal. Defensively, the Florida Panthers are allowing 3.17 goals per game and are killing 70.8 percent of their opponent’s power plays. Sergei Bobrovsky has given up 17 goals on 180 shots faced.
The Lightning are 1-4 in their last 5 games following a win and 9-4 in their last 13 overall. The Panthers are 6-2 in their last 8 Tuesday games and 44-15 in their last 59 overall. The over is 18-6 in Lightning last 24 overall. The over is 20-8-4 in Panthers last 32 home games. The favorite is 35-17 in the last 52 meetings. The home team is 5-2 in the last 7 meetings.
This should be a fun series between two teams that don’t like each other and have gotten into countless fights this season. This is going to be physical. While the Tampa Bay Lightning have the edge in terms of playoff success, there’s something about the Panthers getting that monkey off their back with their first playoff series win in over 20 years. Also, the Panthers won a playoff series without scoring a power play goal, which shows just how scary this group is. In addition, the Panthers have been a buzz saw at home, where they’ve also won 81.3 percent of their last 59 tries. I’m not betting against the Panthers at home as long as the prices are reasonable. Give me the cats.