2021 Lightning vs 2025 Panthers

[um]

Kucherov was arguably the best player on the planet, leading the best team. His peak can be argued but he missed the entire season, came back and scored another 30+ point playoff run and led his team in scoring by a significant margin.

The Panthers beat McDavid and Draisaitl last year and are 1 win away from doing it again.

Star power isn't the Panthers' Kryptonite; in fact, they're elite at dealing with it.

Kucherov was also shut down this year.

 

[atlanticobserver]

Tampa lines:
Ondrej Palat — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn— Anthony Cirelli — Steven Stamkos
Barclay Goodrow — Yanni Gourde — Blake Coleman
Pat Maroon — Tyler Johnson — Ross Colton

Victor Hedman — Jan Rutta
Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak
Mikhail Sergachev — David Savard

Andrei Vasilevskiy
Curtis McElhinney

Extras: Luke Schenn, Mathieu Joseph, Taylor Raddysh, Cal Foote

Florida lines:

Verhaeghe-Barkov-Reinhart
Rodrigues-Bennett-Tkachuk
Luostarinen-Lundell-Marchand
Greer-Nosek-Gadjovich

Forsling-Ekblad
Mikkola-Jones
Schmidt-Kulikov

Bobrovsky
Vanecek

Extras: Sturm, Boqvist, Balinskas, Megna

First line:
Solid Edge: TB: 27 goals, 68 total points, combined +21
(FLA: 20 goals, 59 total points, combined +10)

Second line:
Slight Edge: FLA: 24 goals, 59 total points, combined +15
(TB: 21 goals, 47 total points, combined +8) (Note: Killorn missed entire Final with broken fibula)

Third line:
Decisive Edge: FLA: 21 goals, 55 total points, combined +47
(TB: 11 goals, 24 total points, combined +13)

Fourth line:
Edge: TB: 10 goals, 17 total points, combined +9
(FLA: 4 goals, 9 total points, combined +5)

Extras:
Edge TB

D pair 1:
Edge: Lean TB (Hedman was by far the best defenseman, with 18 points, but Florida's pairing was more balanced)
TB: 4 goals, 21 points, combined +4
FLA: 5 goals, 17 points, combined +15

D pair 2:
Decisive Edge: TB: 1 goal, 18 points, combined +30
(FLA: 7 goals, 15 points, combined +18)

D pair 3:
Decisive Edge: FLA: 6 goals, 17 points, combined +13
(TB: 0 goals, 8 points, combined +0)

Goalies:
Decisive edge: Vasilevskiy: 16-7-0, 0.937 sv%, 1.96 GAA, 5 shutouts
(Bobrovsky: 15-7-0, 0.912 sv%, 2.26 GAA, 3 shutouts)

Team stats:

Goals for/game:
4.05 FLA
3.26 TB

Goals against/game:
1.96 TB
2.50 FLA

Power Play
32.4% TB
25.3% FLA

Penalty Kill
86.4% FLA
84.1% TB

Overall, I think TB takes the series. The top line was incredibly dominant, the depth was pretty similar (Florida's 3rd line is really a third line in deployment only, and I think head-to-head, the TB third line would have given them a much harder time than the ones they have been playing), TB wins the specialty teams battle and the goaltending battle, and basically everything else is even. The 2021 TB power play would probably have really killed the Panthers over the course of a series, given the number of penalties they take, which I think is a big differentiator. Not to mention, Florida has scored at a crazy 14% shooting percentage as a team, and I think that would cool off significantly against prime Vasilevskiy. Also, I give an edge to the team on an eight-series win streak. But it would be fun to see.

 

[CowbellConray]

Panthers

Bennett takes out Vasi first period of game 2, then they whomp Curtis McElhinney for 6 a game and win in 6.

 

[NVious]

If Paul Maurice was time traveling do you think he'd reveal his genius innovation of not shaking hands with players to Jon Cooper or do you think he'd be scared when he got back to his timeline Cooper would be the one credited with changing Hockey history?