After the 2025-26 season, 47 players and six goalies have played with both the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, with Randy Gilhen becoming the first to achieve the feat in 1993 and 1994.
After winning a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, Gilhen bounced around and ended up with the Lightning in early 1993, before the Panthers selected him in the Expansion Draft.
Meanwhile, the latest connection between the two franchises is three-time Stanley Cup winner Carter Verharghe, who won the Silver Chalice with the Lightning in 2020 and the Panthers in 2024 and 2025.
Despite being conference and state rivals since their inception, Florida and Tampa Bay have made 12 trades with one another, including several minor leaguers and Hall of Famer Dino Ciccarelli. Moreover, two names on today’s list have swapped sweaters via a trade.
Considering the number of players who played for both the Panthers and Lightning is long, we broke it down to feature only six players who skated in more than 100 games with each franchise.
Radko Gudas
- Tampa Bay: 126 games
- Florida: 203 games
Initially drafted by the Lightning in the third round, 66th overall, at the 2010 NHL Draft, Radko Gudas debuted with the club in 2012-13 and played three seasons in Tampa Bay. He then went to Philadelphia and Washington before joining the Panthers as a free agent in 2020.
Gudas was a member of the club that advanced to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final but lost in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights. After three seasons with the Anaheim Ducks, serving as team captain in the last two, Gudas returned to the Panthers in June 2026.
Jason Garrison
- Tampa Bay: 212 games
- Florida: 190 games
Jason Garrison was an undrafted defenseman who played one game for the Panthers during the 2008-09 season. He’d spend the next three seasons as an NHL regular before departing as a free agent to join the Vancouver Canucks. He then came back to the Sunshine State, joining the Lightning as a free agent in 2014. Left unprotected in the 2018 Expansion Draft, Garrison became a member of the Golden Knights before finishing his NHL career with the Edmonton Oilers in 2018-19.
Anton Strålman
- Tampa Bay: 355 games
- Florida: 107 games
As a seventh-round pick, 216th overall, in the 2005 NHL Draft, Anton Strålman went on to have a respectable 16-year career in the league. He skated in 938 games with seven franchises, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Arizona Coyotes, and Boston Bruins. In 2014, Strålman joined the Lightning as a free agent and had his best offensive campaigns in Tampa Bay before signing with the Panthers as a free agent in 2019.
Dan Boyle
- Tampa Bay: 394 games
- Florida: 129 games
Dan Boyle was another undrafted defenseman who played for both the Panthers and the Lightning, winning the Stanley Cup with the latter in 2004. He debuted with Florida in 1998, spending parts of four campaigns with the club before a trade sent him to Tampa Bay in 2002. Even though Boyle would go on to have some productive years with the San Jose Sharks, his best single-season performances came with the Lightning.
Jassen Cullimore
- Tampa Bay: 408 games
- Florida: 133 games
Jassen Cullimore was a second-round pick, 29th overall, by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1991 NHL Draft. He’d eventually make his way in the league during the 1994-95 season, before the Canucks dealt him to Montreal in 1997. He wound up in Tampa Bay via a trade in 1998, where he’d play for seven years. Cullimore would play two seasons in Chicago before signing as a free agent with the Panthers in 2007.
Chris Gratton
- Tampa Bay: 428 games
- Florida: 157 games
As the Lightning’s top pick, third overall, in the 1993 NHL Draft, Chris Gratton would go on to play 15 seasons with seven clubs. At 18, he made his debut with the Lightning, the first of three tours of duty with the club. As a free agent in 1999, he signed with Philadelphia, which later traded him back to Tampa Bay that season.
Gratton went on to play with Buffalo, Arizona, and Colorado before signing as a free agent with Florida in 2005 following the NHL lockout. On June 13, 2007, the Panthers traded him to the Lightning for a second-round pick, which eventually turned into Jacob Markström.
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