Lightning and Panthers set to take in-state rivalry to the postseason

Tampa Bay Lightning founder Phil Esposito has been waiting for a Tampa Bay-Florida playoff series since he was blindsided by the Panthers' addition to the National Hockey League as an expansion franchise on December 10, 1992, the day after the Lightning played game No. 30 of their inaugural season.

Esposito says the NHL promised him no other location in the state would be awarded a franchise until at least 1996, giving him time to establish his fledgling Tampa Bay franchise and gain a foothold in the market. When he voiced his displeasure at a Board of Governors meeting where Florida and Anaheim were announced as new expansion franchises to begin play in the 1993-94 season, Esposito claims he was told to in no uncertain terms to "sit down and shut up."
"I said 'Are you kidding me? We're just getting established here, and you're telling me to sit down and shut up?'" Esposito recalled. "But sometimes you can't fight city hall. Tried to. But I had no chance."
At the beginning of the following season, Florida's first in the NHL, the Lightning and Panthers opened the preseason with a game against one another at the Lakeland Civic Center, an exhibition Esposito set up with a phone call to newly-appointed Florida general manager Bobby Clarke. Before the game, Clarke was doing a media interview when Esposito spotted him, snuck up behind him and kissed him on the cheek.
"He goes, 'What was that for?' Esposito remembered. "And I said, 'Clarkie, I can't wait to play you guys if we ever make the playoffs together.'"
Consider the upcoming series Esposito's revenge.
And one he's been anticipating for 29 years now. He still seethes when he recalls how everything went down.
"I've waited a long time for this, to have a playoff series with them," Esposito said. "They're a very good hockey team, and so are we. It should make for a very, very good series."

Tampa Bay and Florida are natural geographic rivals, the two teams separated by a three-and-a-half hour drive down Interstate 75 (or up, depending which direction you're coming from) and across Alligator Alley. They're the only two NHL franchises in the state of Florida. They've played each other 146 times in the regular season, the most either team has played against another franchise.
There's animosity whenever the two teams meet on the ice, no matter the records.
Yet, the rivalry has never quite taken off to that level of some of the greats in the NHL, largely because the two teams have never met in the postseason where great rivalries are born.
This season is just the fourth that both Tampa Bay and Florida have made the playoffs in the same year (1996, 2016, 2020 and 2021). In 1996, the Panthers made a surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final before being swept by the Colorado Avalanche. The Lightning qualified for the playoffs for the first time that year but were beaten in six games by the top-seeded Philadelphia Flyers in the opening round, despite owning a 2-1 lead after three games.
"My feeling was we weren't ready to make the playoffs that year, but (Lightning goalie Daren) Puppa was unbelievable and that's why we made it," Esposito said. "And then he got hurt. That's when it was all over but the crying."
The Lightning would go on to find success under head coach John Tortorella in the early 2000s and win the franchise's first Stanley Cup in 2004. Florida made the playoffs in two of the four seasons following its run to the Stanley Cup Final but never got out of the first round. Then the Panthers went 10-straight seasons without qualifying for the postseason.
The Lightning and Panthers appeared headed for a potential playoff showdown in the second round in 2016. Tampa Bay dismissed Detroit in five games in the opening round. Florida and the New York islanders were tied two games apiece in their first round series. But the Islanders won Games 5 and 6, both in double overtime, and advanced to face the Lightning, who would beat the Islanders in five games to move on to their second-straight Eastern Conference Final.
The Lightning and Panthers played each other in an exhibition game in the Toronto bubble before the official start of the playoffs in 2020, the Bolts dominating the contest in a 5-0 shutout victory. The Panthers were dismissed by the Islanders in four games in a best-of-five qualifying round series that year. The Lightning would go on to win their second Stanley Cup.
Tampa Bay and Florida will face each other for the first time in the playoffs starting with Game 1 of the teams' First Round series Sunday at BB&T Center. The Lightning are trying to become just the second team this decade and first since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2015 and 2016 to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. The Panthers are hoping to win their first playoff series since that run to the Cup Final 25 years ago.

"I would think playoffs help, having those playoff series, having one team move on, having an outcome from there," Ryan McDonagh said when asked if Tampa Bay and Florida are rivals. "You kind of saw that with us and Columbus and the history behind it. We so happened to meet up again in a future playoff, so it's easy to see the rivalry build there. But we did play (Florida) eight times this year, so there's a lot of plays that you remember and things that have happened, wins and losses."
Tampa Bay doesn't have another natural rival like the Panthers but has built up some pretty heated rivalries in recent seasons, largely born out of playoff animosity. The Lightning and Montreal Canadiens contested a couple spirited playoff series in 2013 and 2014 as division mates. Same with Detroit in 2014 and 2015. Of late, the Lightning and Boston Bruins have been fierce competitors, the Bolts beating the Bruins in both the 2018 and 2020 playoffs and each team usually battling for the top spot in the overall NHL standings in the regular season.
But all three of those Original Six teams have plenty of rivals to choose from throughout their histories and don't likely view the Lightning as much of a rival as maybe the Tampa Bay views them.
The Lightning and Columbus battled in back-to-back playoffs in 2019 and 2020, the Blue Jackets famously sweeping the Presidents' Trophy-winning Bolts in 2019 before Tampa Bay got its revenge a year later, beating Columbus in five overtimes in Game 1 of a First Round series in the fourth-longest NHL game ever and going on to win the series in five games.
But while there's animosity between the two teams stemming from those playoff showdowns, the Bolts and Blue Jackets aren't really rivals either.
"We played them twice in the postseason, I just don't sit here and consider them a rival," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "I don't think they consider us a rival. We play them one time in the division. We've played Boston a couple times in the playoffs. Are we rivals with them? Maybe a little bit more, but I think Boston's got a deep history of rivals in this league for years. I would say, a geographic rival? There's no question Florida's a geographic rival. Are the games heated? Yes, but we've never really been in a situation with them like what's happening now. Will this probably create something? I hope it does because I think it's good for the game, it's good for Florida the state, it's good for all of us. Long time coming, and I think we should all relish in it. I think we should all enjoy this. But I think we're more attached at the hip just because we play right down the road than anything from a hockey sense."
This year's Tampa Bay-Florida series will have every hockey fan in the state of Florida watching and will be an intriguing matchup for national and Canadian media as well.
"You're pretty much guaranteed that every TV in every sports bar, you're going to have our hockey game on. And that can do nothing but help," Cooper said. "Now that part probably won't help the kids because they can't get into those sports bars, but they'll be on in every rink. We'll be on. I think you can't help but notice that and I think that's where excitement builds because there are bragging rights not only moving on in the playoffs but who's Florida's team and fan bases going at it. I think it's great."
And despite having never met in the playoffs before, the two teams don't really like each other, as shown throughout the eight games the teams played during the regular season. The second-to-last game on May 8 just one week ago saw 156 combined penalty minutes between the two teams - 118 alone in the third period - the second-most penalty minutes in Lightning franchise history for a road contest. There were 10 misconduct and four major fighting penalties doled out.

"That stuff's fun," Lightning forward Pat Maroon said. "It should amp you up. It should be fun. I'm sure they're jacked up just as we're jacked up too. It brings a better crowd. We want to put a product out on the ice, and we want to perform and you want to stir some things up too at the same time. You want to give the fans something fun to enjoy every single night. This is going to be a great series. They're a good hockey team over there. We're a good hockey team. It's just two (teams) going at it and battling hard between the whistles. I'm excited for it."
So too is Esposito, who will be calling this much-anticipated series as a color commentator for the Lightning Radio Network along with play-by-play man Dave Mishkin.
"This is going to be fun," Esposito said. "And it's going to be very interesting. People all over the country will see that Florida can have good hockey teams. They still don't give us a lot of credit, they really don't.
"But this one is going to be exciting."