After reaching the Stanley Cup Final for three consecutive years and winning two titles, elimination games are not something the Tampa Bay Lightning have gotten too familiar with — unless it's talking about the other team.

But after blowing two home leads in Games 3 and 4, Jon Cooper's team finds themselves down 3-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs with no more margin for error ahead of Game 5 in Ontario on Thursday night.

Still, Tampa Bay has been there before, and the team is in a good headspace ahead of their do-or-die contest, according to ESPN's Kristen Shilton.

“The confidence level is we've done it before,” Cooper explained Thursday. “Less than a year ago, we had a lot of these adversity games. The fine line is sitting here saying well, we've done it before [so] it's just naturally going to happen again. What you have to get inside the guys is just remembering the feeling and how hard it was to actually accomplish [those comebacks] because the enemy's got a vote. You have to make sure that it's not a given.”

Cooper's players echo those sentiments.

“We have a lot of confidence in this group,” forward Pat Maroon said. “I think just the past few years of what we've gone through as a group, we know we've been in this situation before, and we just have to go out there and play our game. And we have full confidence in our group that we can do that. You can only control tonight. Go out there and give everything you can.”

It's not entirely unfamiliar territory for the Bolts; they were down 3-2 to the Leafs in the 2022 postseason, before winning in overtime in Game 6 and prevailing in a tight 2-1 Game 7 to advance.

Still, they haven't been down 3-1 in a series once in any of their three Stanley Cup runs between 2020 and 2023.

It'll be tough sledding for the Lightning if they hope to win three straight games against the Leafs, but they've been there before, and no team has more playoff experience in the 2020s than Jon Cooper's squad.