When the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers joined the NHL in the early 1990s this must have been what the NHL envisioned; a dream match-up of two talented teams, geographically close, with a bitter disdain for each other paired up for a first-round playoff series spearheading its push for southern hockey. It has taken 28-years for it to happen, but the Battle of Florida is officially here.
The franchises themselves are polar opposites. One has a championship pedigree in two separate decades. The other has been mismanaged to near obscurity for most of its existence.