TAMPA — The road to the Stanley Cup this decade has not gone through New York or Pennsylvania or Ontario. It has gone through Florida.

 

The Lightning won a pair of Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021 and reached the last round again in 2022. The Panthers reached the Final in 2023 and won it last year. In four of those five years, one of the Florida teams has beaten the other in the playoffs on the way to the Final, and the Panthers are trying to repeat after eliminating the Lightning on Wednesday. 

As the teams have faced each other more often and the stakes have gotten higher, the postseason matchups between Tampa Bay and Florida have gotten more heated — and the fans are getting more energized.

“I would buy season tickets for the four games that will get played next year on that alone,” Maurice said.

The intensity is felt by more than just fans who want state-wide bragging rights. Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said each time they play Tampa Bay, the series gets tougher.

“Every year just keeps getting harder and harder,” Barkov said. “They’ve won Cups, and they’ve been in the Finals. They know what it takes, and now we’ve done the same thing. So we also know. So it’s a really hard, series. Last year, I remember (was hard). This year (was) even harder. So just happy that we won it this year.”

On the Lightning’s side, coach Jon Cooper was complimentary of the in-state rivals. He said the Panthers learned how to win over the last few years. Now they are on equal footing with Tampa Bay, which won three Stanley Cups before Florida won one, and beat the Panthers in the playoffs in 2021 and 2022.

“They’ve been an exceptional team,” Cooper said. “Not just an average team. They’re an exceptional team. And I think two years ago, they were playing Boston. They were down like 3-1 to the Presidents’ (Trophy) champs and they come back and win that series. They don’t win that series, who knows what happens to that team? They come back, they win, they get a good vibe about how to win because it is something that’s learned and it’s an art. And fortunately for us, (we have) had that for like 10 to 12 years. And you’re not going to win every single playoff series, but they built a team.

“They got a sniff of it. They went to the Final, didn’t win, came back, went to the Final and won. And who knows what they’re gonna do this year? But they’re primarily the same team, but now they know how to do it. And there’s only a few teams in the last little while that really know how to do it. We were one of them, and now they’re one of them. And it’s unfortunate we’ve had to run into them.”

For much of Cooper’s tenure as the Lightning’s coach, the Panthers scuffled to find success and build up their fanbase. That is not the case anymore, as the Lightning dealt with a packed Amerant Bank Arena and split the two games in Sunrise.

“Hockey here is alive and well, and winning helps,” Cooper said. “I think it helped when we were winning, and it’s clearly helped South Florida with them winning. And in the end, people like to attach themselves to winners and they built a great fan base down there. I remember going and playing games there where we had more fans in the building than they did, and they’ve done a fabulous job of building a brand and building a team, and they’re getting rewarded for it.”

The first-round series between Florida and Tampa Bay featured hard hits that led to one player on each team — Brandon Hagel for the Lightning and Aaron Ekblad for the Panthers — getting tagged with suspensions from the NHL. There were other hits, like Matthew Tkachuk’s open-ice hit on Jake Guentzel, that drew ire from fans and coaches.

Maurice compared the matchups with Tampa Bay the last two years to the Panthers’ intense playoff meetings with the Bruins in 2023 and 2024.

“The first Boston series was very heavy. The next Boston series was mean. It was nasty,” Maurice said. “And that’s kind of what happened here. Two teams right in their prime, very competitive men. Tampa’s had success. So it got nasty this year because of the playoffs last year and the fact that we’re rivals, but we’re also (in) the same place with our teams, legitimate teams.

“It’s good to be the ticket sales guy in both cities.”

Originally Published: May 1, 2025 at 12:24 AM EDT