5. Special Teams Being Difference Maker
Truthfully, the performance of Florida in this game was quite poor. The Lightning were not a whole lot better, but the biggest difference ended up being special teams and that could prove to be the biggest factor in the series. As we mentioned before, Tampa Bay scored on three of their six powerplays. Florida went empty on three chances on the man advantage, and they don’t even have a powerplay goal yet in the playoffs after going 0/19 in round one against Washington.
Surely, Florida will play better in game two, but if their powerplay continues to shoot blanks, they have no shot at winning this series. An early storyline to keep an eye on.
Panthers powerplay is now 0-20 in the playoffs.
— Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyNHL) May 18, 2022
Almost half of all powerplay goals come from the area below. Florida has 3 shots from here in 20 PP opportunities. pic.twitter.com/k34VCVXiBb