3 Takeaways From The Florida Panthers & Tampa Bay Lightning Game 1 | 04/22/2025

Tkachuk celebrates his goal with his teammates at the bench.

There were plenty of questions and doubts surrounding the Florida Panthers coming into Game 1 of the playoffs after ending their season with a rough couple of weeks. That season-ending needs to be taken with a grain of salt, given how many players the Cats were resting on any given night, especially the final game of the season against Tampa Bay. However, the biggest question of all that’s been circulating for weeks is if Matthew Tkachuk would play. That question finally got answered at game time as Tkachuk made his return to the lineup for his first game back since getting injured at the Four Nations. The Panthers walked out of Game 1 with a dominant win over the Lightning, with strong performances from the Sams, two players on hat-trick watch, and Florida’s trademark unrelenting physicality.

Sam’s Club Gets Things Started:

The trio of Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, and Mackie Samoskevich are lovingly referred to as the Sams Club by Panthers fans, and they came to play in the first period. Mackie Samosekvich, playing in his first career playoff game, made an incredible pass through the air toward Bennett, who was driving the net. Bennett was then able to bat the puck out of mid-air past Vasilevskiy for the 1-0 lead just 3:44 into the game. That kind of play doesn’t surprise me from Samoskevich, as he’s made great plays like that all season long, now he’s just doing it on a bigger stage. Bennett praised Mackie in his interview between periods when asked about the pass he received. Tampa tied the game in the dying seconds of the power play as Guentzel picked up a puck with a fortunate bounce and slid it in behind Bobrovsky. Late in the first period, the Cats held the offensive zone, and a shot from Kulikov was tipped in top shelf by Sam Reinhart. Reinhart beat Hedman off the boards and got into position to be able to tip Kuli’s shot. Bennett had a secondary assist on the Schmidt goal in the second period for a two-point night, while Reinhart had the primary assist on Tkachuk’s first goal, also for a two-point night. It wasn’t a high shot volume night from the Cats as they had just 16 SOG, but they had high shooting efficiency as they shot at 38%. Bennett had just 1 SOG, but it was a goal. Reinhart only had 2 SOG, but one was a goal. Florida took a 2-1 lead into the second period and didn’t look back from there.

Hat Trick Watch x2:

All eyes were on Matthew Tkachuk in his debut game back since injury, and boy, did he put on a show. The emotional leader of the team looked like he never left, in the middle of scrums, taking penalties, and encouraging his teammates. His presence makes so much of a difference on the Florida power-play, something that he put to good use in Game 1 as he scored two power-play goals en route to the Cats going a perfect 3/3 on the night with the man-advantage. Florida entered the zone quickly on their first power play of the night, and Reinhart got the puck to a wide-open Tkachuk at the front of the net. One-on-one with Vasilevskiy, Tkachuk stick-handled his way to getting Vasi to open up the five-hole, and then he shot it through for the 4-1 Florida lead with 15:05 to play. Lilleberg got called for interference, which led to Tkachuk’s second power-play goal of the game. Barkov’s chance got saved, but chaos at the net eventually shot the puck free back toward Tkachuk, who gloved it down. A quick survey by Matthew and he took a shot toward the small opening near the net that bounced off Vasilevskiy and in for the 5-1 Panther lead, and just over half a period to play in the middle frame. Tkachuk’s third point came as the primary assist on the Schmidt power-play goal in the third period.

Speaking of Schmidt, he also had a two-goal game and became the first Florida defenseman to score a power-play goal on the year. Schmidt scored five goals during the regular season but came alive in the first playoff game for the Panthers. His first goal was just under five minutes into the second period, had him picking up a rebound off a Marchand shot and tapping in for the 3-1 lead. Luostarinen won’t be on the scoresheet for this one, but his physical presence at the net and tying up the Tampa player allowed Schmidt to come in and make the play for the goal. Nate’s second goal came early in the third period when Cernak went off for interference. Barkov made the first pass to Tkachuk, who then made the pass to Schmidt at the point. Barkov then moved in to become a moving screen in front of Vasilevskiy while Schmidt’s shot went in high over Vasi’s shoulder and in for the final goal of the game and the Cats’ eventual 6-2 win; Point scored the other Lightning goal. The two goals, Schmidt’s first and Tkachuk’s first, were only 14 seconds apart and are the fastest two goals scored in playoffs in franchise history.

Heavy Physicality:

Playing against the Panthers is extremely physically demanding. One of the things that allowed Florida to be so successful in the playoffs last season was their heavy forechecking and all-around physicality. The Cats held a 19-9 advantage in hits out of just the first period. By the end of the game, they had a 48-28 advantage in hits, with Sam Bennett leading the way with a game-high seven hits. Twelve different players on Florida’s roster registered multiple hits, with Mikkola and Kulikov having the second highest at five each. There were some heavy hits thrown by the Cats in the first game to the point that Tampa was playing down at least one player for an extended period of time. Verhaeghe threw a huge hit on Cernak that had him exit the game for a stint before eventually returning. There were multiple scrums throughout the night at both nets. However, the biggest almost fight of the night occurred at the benches. Bennett and Hagel were close to potentially dropping gloves, and Gourde was in the middle of several scrums, so don’t be surprised if Florida ends up in a full-on fight with either of those two players. The Florida forecheck caused issues for most of the night for the Lightning, and Bobrovsky only allowed one 5v5 goal off of 18 TBL shots. The hard effort from the Panthers was out in full force for Game 1. We’ll see how Tampa responds to the physicality in Game 2.