For the first time this season, the Florida Panthers will welcome their oldest and most bitter rival to Sunrise.

Saturday night will mark the first meeting between the Cats and the Tampa Bay Lightning since Florida bounced the Bolts from the first round in five games last April.

Well, that’s actually not entirely accurate.

Florida and Tampa played three times during the preseason, with each game seeing the physicality and animosity escalating from one to the next.

It all culminated in multiple fines and suspensions, most of which were levied on the Lightning side of the fence, as Tampa seemed to make it their mission to get after the Panthers despite Florida missing several of their key players and, you know, it being the preseason. 

Now we’ll see if the Lightning still feel they have scores to settle now that the games actually count for something.

For their part, the Bolts have seemingly turned things around after a less-than-ideal start to the season.

Tampa came out of the gate with just one win over their first seven outings (1-4-2), but they’ve only lost twice since (7-2-0).

One of those losses came in their last game, a 7-3 defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers that came on Tampa’s home ice.

Florida, meanwhile, is playing some of their best and most consistent hockey of the season.

Each of their past four games have seen the Cats playing the kind of physical, tight-gapped 5-man systems that make their coach very happy.

While they only won three of those four games, the only loss was a dominant evening in San Jose in which the Cats were goalied by Sharks tendie Yaroslav Askarov.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Saturday’s battle with the Bolts:

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand

Carter Verhaeghe – Evan Rodrigues – Sam Reinhart

Jesper Boqvist – Sam Bennett – Mackie Samoskevich

A.J. Greer – Cole Schwindt – Luke Kunin

Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones

Dominic Sebrango – Jeff Petry

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Photo caption: Oct 2, 2025; Tampa, Florida, USA; the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers break out in a fight in the second period at Benchmark International Arena. (Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images)