Is Tampa Bay Vs. Florida Sneakily The Best Rivalry In The NHL?

When you think of the NHL and all of its historic rivalries, what are some that come to mind?

Do you fancy the heated battles between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs?

Or maybe you're more of a Calgary and Edmonton, Battle of Alberta kind of guy.

Regardless of your choice, pro hockey is chock-full of classic rivalries to satiate your bloodlust, but one in particular may take the cake as of late for the best rivalry in the NHL: The Battle of Florida.

READ: The Florida Panthers Won't Stop Being Scumbags Anytime Soon.

The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers have never been too fond of each other, but with the recent success of both franchises in the past decade, the intensity of this showdown has only grown with each matchup.

And last night's game was no different, as both the Bolts and Cats gave us another dandy of a hockey game, complete with plenty of goals and bad blood to boot.

This series has everything you could ever want in a hockey rivalry.

You want star power? Okay!

Even after the Lightning turned away their face of the franchise, Steven Stamkos, they still have perennial All-Star players like Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point, not to mention three-time Art Ross winner, Nikita Kucherov.

The Panthers have a couple of future Hall of Famers themselves in Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, as well as Brad Marchand, who they brought over from Boston for their Cup run last season.

That doesn't even mention both goaltenders, as Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky and Tampa's Andrei Vasilevskiy are both two-time Stanley Cup champions and virtual locks for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

If you like scoring, this is the series for you as well, since Florida and Tampa Bay average over six goals between the two of them whenever they play each other.

How about fighting, penalties, and bad blood? Yep, that's all here too.

Even in the preseason, these two teams racked up the penalty minutes, but last night's bout took things to some dizzying extremes.

Both teams set season-highs in penalty minutes (87 for Tampa, 49 for Florida), and gave us plenty of fisticuffs to capture everyone's attention.

Finally, these two teams have the winning pedigree to make this rivalry one of the best in the league.

Both Tampa and Florida have won two Stanley Cups since the turn of the decade, and have accounted for four of the last six Cup winners.

I'm not sure anyone could've seen the state of Florida producing one of the best rivalries in hockey, but if you look at the tale of the tape, that might be just what we have here.

If you call yourself a hockey fan and aren't glued to a television set every time the Battle of Florida is on, you're a fraud.

It's just that simple.