The Florida Panthers Have been eliminated from the NHL postseason and lost 2-0 to host Tampa Bay In Game 4 of their second round Stanley Cup playoff series, Monday.
Florida was the NHL’s top-seeded NHL team when it entered the playoffs. They had earned the franchise its first Presidents’ Trophy title with a 122 point campaign. The Panthers are the first Presidents’ Trophy winners to be swept in a playoff series since 2019 Lightning were defeated by Columbus In the first round.
Game 4 was almost scoreless, but it did end in a draw. Patrick Maroon Tip a point blast Zach Bogosian past Sergei Bobrovsky The third period. Ondrej Palat Florida’s fate was sealed with an empty-netter at the last minute.
Because of their depth, the Panthers’ historic regular season was built on offensive success. They paced the NHL in average scoring (4.11 goal per game). They did not lose a single game in 82. They were not out of the tournament until Game 6 against Tampa, which was played last spring.
Florida was the victim of all that firepower.
Washington fell to the Panthers in round one. The team won six of their six games, but required multiple come from behind performances. This effort didn’t go far enough against Tampa Bay, who are the reigning Cup champions.
In all four games against Tampa Bay, Florida scored just one goal. All of the top Panthers performers came up empty. Jonathan Huberdeau He was one of the four goal scorers over 30 in the regular season for the Panthers and led the team’s scoring with 115 points. He had only two assists against Tampa. Aleksander Barkov And Claude Giroux Each team received one assist. Sam Reinhart Florida’s only goal on the power play was a single one.
Andrei Vasilevskiy Tampa Bay’s goalkeeper was amazing, giving up three goals in just four games.
Bobrovsky gave the Panthers chances to recover, not just in Game 4, but throughout the series. He posted a solid.908SV% in the first three games, and he turned away 23 shots to prevent elimination on Monday.
Florida was also able to catch a few breaks, with Tampa’s goals disallowed during the second period.
The NHL Situation Room in Toronto attempted to determine whether the puck had hit the mesh prior to Lightning forward. This review took longer than 10 minutes. Alex Killorn‘s ice-breaking goal. If this was true, the play should be whistled dead. Finally, the judge ruled that the puck had left the surface of play. Tampa Bay was not awarded a goal.
Just minutes later, the second review took place. Nikita Kucherov Bobrovsky snapped a wrister, but Florida challenged Florida for a hand pass Anthony Cirelli It was a draw. The verdict took less than 2 minutes — there was no goal.
The Panthers failed to achieve any goals and will now have to face a long summer and spring to find out what caused their postseason woes.