The Florida Panthers know exactly what is on the line Monday night when they play host to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of their opening-round playoff series.

Win and the Panthers season lives for at least a few more days.

Lose and that is that.

The season, one in which South Florida got excited about the Panthers again, will end in disappointing fashion.

“We just need a bounce-back. It’s do-or-die time,” said center Noel Acciari, who was part of Boston’s run to the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals.

“We’re going to leave it all on the ice and everyone here knows that. We’re not out of this. We have to come together, have a strong 60 minutes.”

Joel Quenneville held a rare between-games practice Sunday but he kept it light. There was no consternation over Saturday’s 6-2 loss in Tampa which put the Panthers on the verge of elimination.

Instead, Quenneville threw the entire team on the ice, threw some pucks out and let the over-sized squad scrimmage against each other.

With three goalies and everyone on the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky hung around the net and tried to knock in some loose pucks.

Bobrovsky was mobbed by his teammates after he scored on Spencer Knight.

“He was definitely cheating around the net there,” Quenneville said with a smirk. “He knew where to go, where the sweet spots were.”

That may have been the only action Bobrovsky is going to see.

Although Quenneville would not announce who will start Monday’s game, it is believed the 20-year-old rookie will get the nod over Bobrovsky and Chris Driedger.

With the unreliability of both goalies — Quenneville has had to replace both of them in the past two games — going with Knight may just provide the spark a desperate team needs.

Tampa Bay is coming in hungry to end this thing and may be salivating at the thought of facing a goalie with just four NHL games under his belt.

But the Lightning has not faced him before, either, so perhaps that gives Knight and the Panthers a slight edge.

Regardless, the Panthers are a desperate team right now. They’re not ready to pack it in just yet.

”After four games, whether you quantify it with number of goals, chances, possession time, I would say 5-on-5 particularly we have been very happy with the way things have gone,” Quenneville said. “We had to chase a couple of games and that doesn’t really help. Yesterday’s start, we did everything right and were trailing at the end of one. You keep doing things like that, you’re going to find ways to get rewarded.”

MacKenzie Weegar said he and a couple of teammates went out to dinner upon getting back in town following Saturday’s game to talk things out, to clear the air.

The Panthers, despite Saturday’s lopsided score, has been in every single one of these games. Florida was the much better team in the first period Saturday — just ask the Lightning — yet trailed 3-1 going into intermission.

Florida was never that close again.

“We have to be better,” Weegar said. “We have a tight group here and everything here is positive moving forward. We’re not out of this thing. It’s going to be fun. We’re going to have a big crowd here and we’re going to give it our all. We have a great leadership group in the room … For them, the fourth game is the hardest one to win. It’s going to be exciting.”

FLYING COACH

Quenneville said he saw some of the comments Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper had in response to the rough play on Saturday.

To sum up, Cooper talked about antics, embellishments and non calls while saying his team was told not to pull anything, only to see the Panthers pull stuff and not get penalized.

Although Cooper admitted his team were “not angels out there” and “did we earn some of our penalties? There is no question we did,”

Quenneville did not seem thrilled his team was called out nationally for being goons.

The NHL department of Player Safety did not hand out any additional discipline to players on either side Sunday.

“I saw some of Coop’s comments there and I couldn’t disagree more with what he saw and what I saw,’’ Quenneville said. “The only disagreement would be that suspendible offenses weren’t called. It’s been a competitive four games and I’ll leave it at that.’’

WHO’S IN?

The Lightning did not have any updates on the status of forward Nikita Kucherov (who left after being slashed by Anthony Duclair) or defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (hit by Patric Hornqvist).

The Panthers are expecting both players to be in the lineup Monday.

Florida was without Markus Nutivaara on Sunday and if he doesn’t play, the Panthers could bring Keith Yandle back after he was scratched the past two games or bring in Kevin Connauton or Matt Kiersted.

2021 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS

ROUND 1

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING VS. FLORIDA PANTHERS

TAMPA BAY LEADS 3-1 IN BEST-OF-7 SERIES

GAME 5

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS LINEUP

FLORIDA FORWARDS

23 Carter Verhaeghe — 16 Sasha Barkov — 91 Anthony Duclair

11 Jonathan Huberdeau — 9 Sam Bennett — 74 Owen Tippett

19 Mason Marchment — 21 Alex Wennberg — 70 Patric Hornqvist

94 Ryan Lomberg — 55 Noel Acciari — 77 Frank Vatrano

FLORIDA DEFENSEMEN

52 MacKenzie Weegar — 6 Anton Stralman 

42 Gus Forsling — 62 Brandon Montour

3 Keith Yandle — 7 Radko Gudas

FLORIDA GOALIES

30 Spencer Knight

60 Chris Driedger

Reserves: G Sergei Bobrovsky, D Markus Nutivaara, F Aleksi Heponiemi, F Grigori Denisenko, F Juho Lammikko, F Eetu Luostarinen, D Matt Kiersted, F Nikita Gusev, F Lucas Wallmark, D Chase Priskie, D Lucas Carlsson, D John Ludvig, D Vladislav Kolyachonok, D Kevin Connauton, F Cole Schwindt, F Scott Wilson, G Sam Montembeault, G Philippe Desrosiers, D Brady Keeper

Injured: D Noah Juulsen (UBI, TBD); D Aaron Ekblad (leg, out this series)

Florida power play (5/15 33.3% — T-2nd in NHL)

PP1: Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Patric Hornqvist, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe

PP2: Alex Wennberg, Anthony Duclair, Frank Vatrano, Brandon Montour, MacKenzie Weegar

Florida penalty kill (8/15 53.3% — 16th in NHL)

PROJECTED TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING LINEUP

TAMPA BAY FORWARDS

18 Ondrej Palat — 21 Brayden Point — 86 Nikita Kucherov

17 Alex Killorn — 71 Anthony Cirelli  — 91 Steven Stamkos 

79 Ross Colton — 37 Yanni Gourde — 20 Blake Coleman

14 Pat Maroon — 9 Tyler Johnson — 7 Mathieu Joseph

TAMPA BAY DEFENSEMEN

77 Victor Hedman — 44 Jan Rutta

27 Ryan McDonagh — 81 Erik Cernak

98 Mikhail Sergachev — 58 David Savard

TAMPA BAY GOALIES

88 Andrei Vasilevskiy

35 Curtis McElhinney

Tampa Bay power play (7/15 46.7% — 1st in NHL)

PP1: Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman

PP2: Alex Killorn, Anthony Cirelli, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, Mikhail Sergachev

Tampa Bay penalty kill (10/15 66.7% — T-14th in NHL)