The Florida Panthers are just one win away from advancing to round two.

After not winning a round for 26 years, Florida has a chance to make it four straight years of advance to at least the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Round one through four games has seen various results, from a bunch of power play goals, to a shutout, to two goals in 11 seconds from both teams. This edition of the Battle of Florida has been difficult to predict where the tide could turn.

For the Panthers, they have done one thing really well, and it stems from all the way back post-trade deadline, it has been the ability to adapt.

Florida played the last 18 regular season games and the first two games of round one without defenseman Aaron Ekblad, and will be without him again as he is currently serving a two-game suspension for his elbow to the head/neck area of Lightning forward Brandon Hagel during game four.

They also missed Dmitry Kulikov for a bit of time until the last week of the regular season, and chose to rest their players down the stretch.

Now the Panthers are going to be re-inserting Uvis Balinskis in the lineup for game five in Tampa for a chance to face the winner of the Senators-Leafs series.

Balinskis has seen his role increase throughout the year, playing in 76 regular season games, averaging just over 14 minutes a game, and being a steady presence on the bottom pair, mostly paired with Nate Schmidt.

During his two games of the series, the Panthers have allowed two goals in the two games, including a shutout in game two. Balinskis is a plus-two so far, and has fit in well. He now comes in where it's a crucial do-or-die game for the opposition.

“Yeah, we are just trying to play simple, the game is fast and physical,” Balinskis said after morning skate on Wednesday. “[The Lightning] are going to come out really fast and hard and they are gonna want to win the game, but I think the first five minutes is going to be the most important.”

The moment has not been too big for Balinskis as he has played in the IIHF World Championship and also played a huge role at the beginning of the 2023-24 season when needed to fill in for Ekblad and Brandon Montour due to injury.

Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice has had to make lineup decisions due to internal and external factors for the last two months in preparation for the grind, that is, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, so it’s nothing new to him.

“This would be viewed in our room as an injury,” Maurice said Wednesday morning on the Ekblad suspension.”Fortunately, we have that experience now, we have had a really good defenseman that hasn’t played for us and we have not just a couple of games of Uvis Balinskis, he played in the lineup straight through and in the playoffs, so we have good depth for that.”

In the tournament, it takes more than 18 skaters in order get to the ultimate goal, and the Panthers have already done so with Balinskis and forward AJ Greer coming into game 4 for Mackie Samoskevich, so there’s a trust in his depth.

It worked for the first two games, along with game four when Greer was inserted in, now it will be an even bigger test with Tampa’s season on the line.

Florida went 4-5 last postseason in series clinching games, including 1-1 against the Bolts.

Tonight will be the Panthers’ first chance at advancing and to give themselves some rest before round two starts next week.

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