Playoff Takeaways: Panthers dispatch rival Lightning in five games

The Florida Panthers punched their ticket to the second round after taking out the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 on Monday night.

The Panthers won 6-1, paced by two goals apiece from captain Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe. Florida also had a pair of empty netters, and the Lightning had a pair of goals overturned due to goaltender interference.

Tampa Bay is definitely done in the post-season, but the question is, was that the last time we’ll see Steven Stamkos in a Lightning jersey?

Here are our takeaways from Game 5, which saw fans launch celebratory plastic rats all over the ice when it was over.

The Lightning struck first in this one, but the goal was called back on a goaltender interference challenge by Florida.

Anthony Cirelli put one past Sergei Bobrovsky, who earlier Monday was announced as a Vezina finalist. It would’ve been Cirelli’s first of the post-season, but on the review, the situation room in Toronto determined Anthony Duclair was inside the blue paint, and his right skate interfered with Bobrovsky (it appeared to interfere with his glove, in particular).

When the official announced the goal was called back, fans at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise went bananas at the news, cheering loudly and waving their towels.

Tampa coach Jon Cooper stood on the bench, shaking his head.

There were seven minutes to go in the first, and this one was still scoreless.

Less than a minute into the second period, Florida scored a goal that counted.

Carter Verhaeghe took a shot from the high slot, then stepped up and jumped on his own rebound, did a little toe-drag around the Lightning defender, and fired it past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.

It was Verhaeghe’s fourth goal and seventh point of the series, and he’d add his fifth goal and eighth point in the third period, with an empty-netter.

The Lightning had the NHL’s best power play in the regular season, but they struggled in the post-season, and that continued on Monday night.

Not only were they 0-4 on the night, but they also gave up a shorthanded goal.

Defender Aaron Ekblad fired one from the point, Vasikelvskiy wasn’t able to hang onto the puck with his glove, and the rebound bounced out to Barkov. The captain made no mistake, putting the Panthers up 2-0 and sending the home crowd into a towel-waving tizzy.

There were still about 40 seconds remaining on Tampa’s power play.

Less than a minute after Florida scored shorthanded, Victor Hedman wired an absolute rocket into the net to get his team on the board. 

Hedman had a clear-as-day view of the net, and he fired the puck over Bobrovsky’s glove, top corner. It clocked nearly 84 mph. 

Just like that, the Lightning were within one.

The Lightning (seemingly) managed to tie things up not long after their first goal, this time on a Mikhail Sergachev point shot with 2:12 remaining in the second. But the goal was waved off on the ice because of goaltender interference, once again.

Cirelli was entangled with Panthers defender Niko Mikkola in front, and officials determined Cirelli interfered with Bobrovsky.

This time it was Cooper who challenged the call but it didn’t take long for the decision room in Toronto to confirm they agreed with the call on the ice. No goal.

Again, Cooper shook his head on the bench.

It was still 2-1, Panthers. And Tampa Bay led 2-0 in illegal goals.

Check out the panel’s discussion on the second disallowed goal:

Barkov scored his second of the game, this time at even-strength, to make it 3-1, when he batted a bouncing puck into the back of the net off a broken play.

Monday was Barkov’s first career multi-goal playoff game.

With just over five minutes to go, Evan Rodrigues wired a one-timer past Vasilevskiy on a beauty cross-ice pass from Kevin Stenlund.

Verhaeghe potted the first empty-netter for his second goal of the game, and Mikkola added a second empty-netter.

In between those empty-netters, the league’s points leader in the regular season, Nikita Kucherov, broke his stick in half while slamming it across Tampa Bay’s bench.

The forever face of the franchise is on an expiring contract and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer if an agreement can't be reached.

Stamkos, 34, made his frustrations clear with a lack of contract talks before the season, and his future is in question. He has said he wants to remain in Tampa for the rest of his career.

Time will tell if that’s the case but Monday could be the last time we see Stamkos in a Tampa Bay Lightning uniform. It seems hard to believe. If it was Stamkos’ last game for the Lightning, it was certainly a frustrating and tough way to finish an incredible run in Tampa Bay for the future Hall of Famer.