The Battle of Florida kicks off Sunday and it may just come down to a Battle of superstar Russian Goalies: Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky.

Two of the most decorated goaltenders in the NHL will square off in Game 1 as Bobrovsky — the only active two-time winner of the Vezina Trophy — gets the Florida net and takes on countryman Vasilevskiy on the other side.

Vasilevskiy is widely regarded the best goalie in the NHL and he led the league with 31 wins this season.

He won the Vezina in 2019 and is favored to do it again this year and will join Bobrovsky in the Two-Timers Club.

When it comes to this series, however, both come in with some question marks.

Bobrovsky, well, we know about.

Since signing that massive seven-year, $70 million deal with the Panthers, Bobrovsky has been hot-and-cold.

As he said last year, “the numbers are not what I want them to be.”

After going 19-8-2 this season, Bobrovsky said Saturday that he’s ready and able to get this thing going come Sunday night.

“It’s definitely an exciting time for all of us, for the whole team,” Bobrovsky said. “We look forward to this opportunity. I think we have a great team. We have a great chance. We’re all excited. It’s going to be good, fun hockey.”

While Vasilevskiy had another terrific season for the Lightning, his performances against the Panthers have not been up to his usual standard.

Florida, to be certain, knows how good Vasilevskiy is — but it doesn’t seem like the Panthers are all that scared of him.

The Panthers have scored 14 goals in their past three games against Vasilevskiy.

Say what you want about the lineup Tampa Bay put out against the Panthers in the final two games of the regular season, but they still had the big-time goalie.

And the Panthers scored on him time and again.

This season, Vasilevskiy went 29-6-2 with a 1.97 goals-against average and .930 save percentage against the Central teams NOT named the Panthers.

Against Florida, Vasilevskiy looked very human going 2-4-0 with a 3.36 GAA and .898 save percentage.

In the final two games of the season, the Panthers outscored Tampa Bay 9-1 as Vasilevskiy gave up nine goals on 65 shots (.862 save percentage).

“Obviously he is a good goalie as everyone knows,” said Bobrovsky, who is 3-2-0 against Tampa Bay this season with a 3.23/.879.

“It’s a good matchup, a fun challenge for me. It’s one of those things where you have to focus on one shot at a time. I have to anticipate that he’s going to make big saves and I have to make big saves. It should be fun hockey.”

The Lightning will have a much improved defensive team than it did in these two most recent games as former Norris Trophy winner (and reigning Conn Smythe winner) Victor Hedman returns as will Ryan McDonagh.

Tampa Bay also gets big-timers Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos back.

Kucherov has missed this entire season after having surgery in December. He scored seven goals with 34 points in Tampa Bay’s playoff run last summer.

Stamkos, the team captain, has been out of the lineup since April 8.

“We know we have our hands full with our opponent,” Quenneville said of Tampa Bay’s improved lineup.

“They have a couple aces coming back that haven’t been in their lineup lately. They are adding a lot of skill to their lineup and on special teams as well. Welcoming that challenge is somewhere we have to go and it’s where we’re headed.”

THE COLUMBUS FACTOR

A big reason the Panthers went so hard after Bobrovsky — and were likely bidding against themselves in 2019 — was that he was the best goalie on the market.

It did not hurt that he was coming off a fantastic playoff series in which he helped the eighth-seeded Blue Jackets stun the No. 1 Lightning with a four-game sweep in the opening round.

Bobrovsky was actually down 3-0 after the first period of Game 1 but John Tortorella said he never thought of pulling his goalie, blaming the deficit on team jitters.

In the second, Bobrovsky made a huge save when Stamkos and Kucherov were all alone on a 2-on-0 to keep it from being a four-goal game.

After a couple more saves, Nick Foligno scored to give the Jackets life at 3-1, the Jackets rallied to win 4-3 and it was a different series from then on out.

Bobrovsky ended up making 93 percent of his saves against the Lightning in that 2019 series but is 4-5 against Tampa Bay since joining the Panthers.

“You feel, you know those guys are beatable and know you have a good chance to win,’’ Bobrovsky said Saturday.

“But at the end of the day, this is a new hockey team and it’s a new game. Tomorrow starts 0-0 and you have to compete and you have to earn your win.”

THE BACKUPS?

Florida desperately needs Bobrovsky to return to ‘Big Game Bob’ status and hope that that the relaxed workload (he has played two games in May) has him fresh as a daisy going into the postseason.

Bobrovsky has won three consecutive starts and five of his past six.

“Bob had stretches this year where he has been outstanding and I thought his last game was in that same relm,” Quenneville said.

“I thought Bob had and excellent start going into the playoffs, I think his frame of mind has been outstanding about the challenge. He is rested and looking forward to it.”

If Bobrovsky were to falter, the Panthers can always turn to Chris Driedger who had another strong season.

Driedger (2-0-1 against the Lightning) has actually put up better numbers than Bobrovsky in each of the past two seasons.

He ended this year ranked fifth in the NHL in GAA (2.07) and save percentage (.927).

The Panthers would just as well rather not have to turn to Driedger.

No offense, but the longer Bobrovsky stays in net, the better he (and the Panthers) would be doing.

If Vasilevskiy’s game takes a southern turn, the Lightning are in trouble.

Backup Curtis McElhinney has only played in 12 games this season as Vasilevskiy has carried much of the load.

In those games, McElhinney has gone 4-6-2 with a 3.09/.875.

2021 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS

ROUND 1 (BEST-OF-7)

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING VS. FLORIDA PANTHERS

GAME 1

PROJECTED FLORIDA PANTHERS LINEUP

FLORIDA FORWARDS

23 Carter Verhaeghe — 16 Sasha Barkov — 91 Anthony Duclair

11 Jonathan Huberdeau — 9 Sam Bennett — 74 Owen Tippett

77 Frank Vatrano — 21 Alex Wennberg — 70 Patric Hornqvist

94 Ryan Lomberg — 55 Noel Acciari — 19 Mason Marchment

FLORIDA DEFENSEMEN

42 Gus Forsling — 52 MacKenzie Weegar

65 Markus Nutivaara — 62 Brandon Montour

3 Keith Yandle — 7 Radko Gudas

FLORIDA GOALIES

72 Sergei Bobrovsky

60 Chris Driedger

Scratches: F Aleksi Heponiemi, F Grigori Denisenko, F Eetu Luostarinen, D Matt Kiersted, F Nikita Gusev, D Brandon Montour, F Sam Bennett, F Juho Lammikko, F Lucas Wallmark, G Spencer Knight

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

Taxi squad: D Kevin Connauton, F Cole Schwindt, F Scott Wilson, G Sam Montembeault, G Philippe Desrosiers, D Brady Keeper

Florida power play (38/190 20.5% — 15th in NHL)

Florida penalty kill (134/168 79.8% — 17th in NHL)

PP1: Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Patric Hornqvist, Sam Bennett, Keith Yandle

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

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 (40/179 22.3% — 9th in NHL)

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

PP2: Alex Killorn, Anthony Cirelli, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, Ryan McDonagh

Tampa Bay penalty kill (154/183 84.2% — 4th in NHL)