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Lightning Forward to Have Hearing For Hit on Panthers Captain

Tensions continue to rise between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

Jon Alfano

Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Brandon Hagel skates against the Carolina Hurricanes during the third period at Lenovo Center.
Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Brandon Hagel skates against the Carolina Hurricanes during the third period at Lenovo Center. / James Guillory-Imagn Images
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Almost nothing is going right for the Tampa Bay Lightning right now, as they trail the rival Florida Panthers 2-0 with the first-round series now moving south to Sunrise.

Now, their situation may go from bad to worse.

Halfway through the third period of Game 2 on Thursday night, Lightning forward Brandon Hagel laid out Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov away from the puck. Hagel received a 5-minute major penalty for interference, while Barkov did not return to the game. The Panthers led 1-0 at the time, and Sam Bennett's empty net goal in the final seconds gave them a 2-0 victory and a 2-0 lead in the series.

Hagel may have cost himself more than just five minutes with that hit, as the Department of Player Safety announced that he will have a hearing for that hit on Friday.

Hagel, 26, has developed into one of the Lightning's top forwards. He just scored a career-high 90 points (35 goals, 55 assists) in 82 regular season games, the second-most on the team behind Art Ross Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov, and he did it all without a single power play goal. He's also a key piece of Tampa Bay's penalty kill, with him and Anthony Cirelli often teaming up.

If the Lightning are without Hagel for Game 3 on Saturday, and they almost certainly will be, they are in deep trouble. They're already struggling to generate any sort of offense against a more physical Panthers team, and losing one of their best scorers could be a death sentence.

Tampa Bay has hurt itself so much in just two games, from bad special teams play to not being able to make key saves. This is just the latest example of how badly these unforced errors are costing the team.

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Jon Alfano
JON ALFANO

Jon is a lead writer for Baltimore Ravens On SI and contributes to other sites around the network as well. The Tampa native previously worked with sites such as ClutchPoints and GiveMeSport and earned his journalism degree at the University of Central Florida.

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