“They’re going to come out flying, like they did last game. We’ve just got to stay calm and weather the storm and go from there.” — Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling

“A little bit of everything. A little bit of the forecheck, a little bit of creating more O-zone time, breaking the puck out a little cleaner. Every aspect of the game we can find ways to improve it a little bit. We’re excited for today.” — Lightning forward Yanni Gourde, on what the team can improve from Game 1

Panthers projected lineup

Carter Verhaeghe — Aleksander Barkov — Sam Reinhart

Mackie Samoskevich — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk

Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand

Evan Rodrigues — Nico Sturm — Jesper Boqvist

Gustav Forsling — Seth Jones

Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov

Uvis Balinskis — Nate Schmidt

Sergei Bobrovsky

Vitek Vanecek

Scratched: Tomas Nosek, A.J. Greer, Jonah Gadjovich, Jaycob Megna

Injured: None

Suspended: Aaron Ekblad

Lightning projected lineup

Gage Goncalves — Brayden Point — Nikita Kucherov

Jake Guentzel — Nick Paul — Brandon Hagel

Conor Geekie — Yanni Gourde — Mitchell Chaffee

Zemgus Girgensons — Luke Glendening

Victor Hedman — JJ Moser

Ryan McDonagh — Erik Cernak

Emil Lilleberg — Nick Perbix

Darren Raddysh

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Jonas Johansson

Scratched: Cam Atkinson

Injured: Oliver Bjorkstrand (lower-body injury), Anthony Cirelli (undisclosed)

Status report

Ekblad will serve the final game of his 20-game suspension for violating the terms of the NHL/NHLPA Performance Enhancing Substances Program; the defenseman will be eligible to return for Game 3 on Saturday. If Cirelli isn’t able to play, Chaffee will take his spot in the lineup and make his playoff debut this season after playing in five postseason games in 2024.