Florida Panthers defenseman Seth Jones (3) gets a group hug after scoring a goal during the third period of Game 4 of the first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday, April 28, 2025, at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla. The Panthers won 4-2. Alie Skowronski [email protected]

It took 11 seconds midway through the second period for the Florida Panthers to lose their early lead in Game 4 of their Stanley Cup playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday.

It took 11 seconds late in the third period for them to get it back — and keep it.

Defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Seth Jones scored the game-tying and go-ahead goals with 3:47 and 3:36 left to play, respectively, to lead the Panthers to a 4-2 win over the Lightning at Amerant Bank Arena and take a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series.

Game 5, the Panthers’ first chance to clinch the series, is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tampa’s Amalie Arena.

“We finished,” Jones said. “We stuck with it.”

The goals by Ekblad and Jones were the fastest by defensemen for one team in Stanley Cup playoffs history.

Before Florida scored those late goals, Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak scored twice midway through the second period to turn a 1-0 Florida lead into a 2-1 Panthers deficit. The goals came about a minute after an Ekblad high hit on the boards to Lightning forward Brandon Hagel, who did not return to the game.

The Panthers played from behind for the majority of the game after that and played down one defenseman after Niko Mikkola was given a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct 19 seconds into the third period for boarding Tampa Bay forward Zemgus Girgensons.

Florida killed off the Mikkola penalty, allowing Tampa to get just one shot on goal in that extended time up an attacker. The Panthers’ penalty kill has gone 14 for 15 so far in the series.

“We needed that kill,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said. “The killers did a good job and kept us in the game, kept it a one-goal game.”

Ekblad appeared to have tied the game on a power-play goal with 12:58 left to play, but the goal was overturned after Lightning coach Jon Cooper successfully challenged that the play was offside. About nine minutes later, he started the scoring flurry to seal the win.

Anton Lundell opened scoring for Florida 9:06 into the second period, beating Andrei Vasilevskiy up close off a feed from Brad Marchand in the corner. Carter Verhaeghe capped scoring with an empty netter with 1:40 left to play.

And now, the Panthers are one win away from moving on to the second round of the playoffs.

This story was originally published April 28, 2025 at 9:42 PM.