With the first postgame season looming between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers later today, it’s time to look back at the first time the two teams met on the ice. Officially it happened on October 9th, 1993, a 2-0 Panthers win that was their first in franchise history. That’s not the game we’re going to talk about, though. Three weeks earlier the two teams met in a pre-season game that was pretty much peak 1990s Florida hockey.
On September 16th, 1993 two things happened. One - I turned 17 years old.