MIAMI — A few days had passed since the Florida Panthers’ record-setting season ended with a stunning sweep at the hands of the rival Tampa Bay Lightning and the Panthers couldn’t believe it.
“I woke up this morning thinking we were playing,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said Wednesday after arriving at FLA Live Arena on the day Florida could have been playing Game 5 of the second round.
It was stunning not even necessarily because it ended in Round 2 — the Lightning, after all, have won the last two Stanley Cups — but because of how quickly it did. Even though the Panthers made the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 1996, they still haven’t won a game there since then after losing their second-round series 4-0 to Tampa Bay on Monday.
