from Eduardo Encina of the Tampa Bay Times,

As the regular season was winding down last month, and the Lightning were losing leverage for home-ice advantage in the playoffs, it didn’t worry anyone inside the Tampa Bay locker room.

For good reason. The Lightning won the Stanley Cup isolated and without fans in the bubble a year ago. So far this postseason, they’ve gone into two road arenas and silenced the opposing team’s fans.

The Lightning took control of their first-round series win over the Panthers by taking the opening two games in Sunrise, and after Tuesday’s 2-1 win over the Hurricanes at PNC Arena, they’ve done the same against the Central Division champions in the second round.

They fed off the energy of the largest crowds they’ve played in front of since the pandemic began — two nights of near-capacity 16,299 raucous fans in Raleigh.

“There were a couple points when if we had won (a few) games at the end of the season, we would have had home ice against Florida,” said Lightning forward Alex Killorn, whose second-period goal broke a scoreless tie. “And we weren’t too worried about it in a sense because we knew that, regardless of home or away, we’ve had enough experience in the playoffs that it wasn’t going to faze us. These crowds are great; they’re actually super loud and that energy can work both ways. It can get us going, too.”

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