Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning: Stanley Cup Playoffs, Game 4 Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 5/23/2022

Time: 7 p.m. ET

Venue: Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL

Where to watch: TNT

DraftKings: Lightning -120, Panthers +100

BetMGM: NL

Caesars: NL

It's over. The Tampa Bay Lightning are moving on to the Eastern Conference Final again. Thank you to the Florida Panthers for playing, but they will once again fall victim to their Florida brethren.

Last year was a great learning experience for the Panthers. Making it to the playoffs with that stacked roster, throwing a rookie goalie in net and even getting two wins out of it, it's truly remarkable.

But the Lightning remain incredible, and such a performance has put the Lightning one win away from their third straight appearance in the conference final and fourth in five years after a 4-1 victory in Game 3 of their series Sunday against the Panthers.

Game 4 is Monday, in Tampa, with the likely chance that the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs will sweep the Presidents' Trophy winning Panthers out of the second round.

A couple of things to note here: One, this shows just how good the Toronto Maple Leafs were this season. As much as I love to rag on them for the continuous playoff failures and the people of Toronto living and dying by every shift, that team pushed the Lightning to seven games and were a Nick Paul classic away from advancing and getting Florida this round.

We would be sitting here today talking about the likelihood of the Maple Leafs up 3-0 on the Panthers if it got to that point.

Alas, this is why they have won back-to-back Cups. And for as much as you want to complain they were almost $20 million over the cap last year, they've won a Cup in a bubble in one of the more excruciating circumstances we can remember, and then a 56-game season coupled with a hard-fought seven-game series against the Islanders in the conference final, and winning a Cup with so much hockey against the Montreal Canadiens.

You put all of that together, and the Lightning are one of the more incredible stories this side of the Mississippi. And even though we are living in the age where sports dynasties are so revered, what the Lightning have done since October 2020 is truly incredible and if they make it back to the Stanley Cup Final, it's going to be one of the more impressive runs in sports history.

More importantly, it's been the defense and goaltending carrying the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy has allowed just three goals in three games after a rather rough series against Toronto, showing again why he's the most dominant goalie in the world. It doesn't take much to outplay Sergei Bobrovsky, but there's clearly a discrepancy there.

Steven Stamkos scored twice, and Vasilevskiy made 34 saves in a dominant effort.

Meanwhile, the big-named players for the Panthers have not been able to step up when needed. Sam Reinhart scored his third goal of the postseason, but was a minus-2. Clearly not the type of game you want, but there's no Jonathan Huberdeau. There's no Sasha Barkov. There's hardly Anthony Duclair. There's got to be someone ready to capitalize and get this offense going.

I know that's hard to have happen when Vasilevskiy is playing on his head, but still.

And I think we'll be looking at Game 2 for a while to wonder what could've been with the Panthers. Losing that way was just incredible.

There needs to be a Herculean effort from the Panthers to keep this going. The good news is, if you win Game 4, you have a good chance winning Game 5 at home. And then you go back to Tampa for a Game 6, knowing you've already won in that building. The Lightning can't let this one get away just for the sake of not letting it get that far. It's a back-to-back, also, and I think the Panthers have run out of gas. Tampa wins, advances, and we bask in their glory. Lightning win 3-2

The Panthers are 7-12 since 1996 when trailing in a playoff series.

The Panthers are 2-5 in Game 4 in their history.

The Lightning are 33-8 in Game 4 in their history.

The Lightning are 41-26 when leading in a playoff series.

Anthony Duclair -- Aleksander Barkov -- Claude Giroux

Jonathan Huberdeau -- Sam Bennett -- Sam Reinhart

Mason Marchment -- Anton Lundell -- Noel Acciari

Ryan Lomberg -- Eetu Luostarinen -- Patric Hornqvist

Ben Chiarot -- Aaron Ekblad

Gustav Forsling -- MacKenzie Weegar

Brandon Montour -- Radko Gudas

Sergei Bobrovsky

Lightning:

Ondrej Palat -- Steven Stamkos -- Nikita Kucherov

Alex Killorn -- Anthony Cirelli -- Brandon Hagel

Nicholas Paul -- Brayden Point -- Ross Colton

Pat Maroon -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Corey Perry

Victor Hedman -- Erik Cernak

Ryan McDonagh -- Cal Foote

Mikhail Sergachev -- Zach Bogosian

Andrei Vasilevskiy