“I remember a few years ago, it felt like such an accomplishment from where we were at one point,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said, adding: “It's all business and we've got a bigger goal in mind.”
The Panthers closed out the Carolina Hurricanes in five games Wednesday night with a 5-3 victory in the Eastern Conference final, pushing ahead for good when Carter Verhaeghe broke a tie off a feed from Aleksander Barkov with 7:39 left.
Florida beat the Hurricanes in the Eastern final for the second time in three seasons. The Panthers will face the winner of the Western final between Dallas and Edmonton, with the Oilers up 3-1 in that best-of-seven series to put them within a win of a rematch with Florida for the Cup.
Sam Bennett added an empty-net goal with 54 seconds left by skating down a loose puck straight out of the penalty box after Florida had held up against a critical late power play for the Hurricanes.
That capped a wild night that saw the Hurricanes jump to a 2-0 lead by capitalizing on giveaways, and Florida answer with three second-period goals, only to see Carolina's Seth Jarvis beat Bobrovsky midway through the third to tie it at 3.
“That was all the elements that make our sport great," Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “They're all over us. And we’re serving up pizzas and we don't look like we should’ve made the playoffs, and then the next thing you know we look pretty good.”
When it was over, the Panthers posed for pictures on Carolina's home ice during the presentation of the Prince of Wales Trophy for the conference winner. Some Hurricanes fans remained defiant, offering scattered “Let's go, Oilers!” chants.
The angst is appropriate considering how Florida has now twice ended Carolina's push to its first Cup Final since winning the franchise's lone title in 2006 when now-coach Rod Brind'Amour was captain.
Florida had won the first three games of this series but lost 3-0 at home Monday night as the Hurricanes averted a second straight sweep against Florida. But by the final horn Wednesday, the Panthers had won all three games in Raleigh in the series, pushed their road winning streak in these playoffs to five games and earned an eighth postseason road win overall.
“They’re a great team and it’s obvious the last couple of years, they’re the standard, obviously,” Brind’Amour said. “I thought our guy battled really hard all series.”
Tkachuk, Evan Rodrigues and Anton Lundell scored on consecutive shots during Florida’s second-period flurry — two of those coming in a 30-second span — while Bobrovsky finished with 20 saves.
Barkov’s assist on Verhaeghe’s winner also stood out as its own terrific individual effort. Florida’s captain was jostling with Carolina’s Dmitry Orlov in a battle near the boards on the left side when he turned toward the crease, stepped inside of Eric Robinson and sent the puck over to Verhaeghe for the finish that silenced a Hurricanes home crowd in full-throated roar after Jarvis’ tying score.
“He took on one guy, then two guys and then gave the puck to me with a pretty open net,” Verhaeghe said. “So it was an unbelievable play by Barky at a critical time.”
Sebastian Aho scored twice in the first period for Carolina, both on neutral-zone giveaways — the first being one from Gustav Forsling that hit Aho in stride for a a breakaway chance that ended up in the net. Aho added another off a giveaway from Niko Mikkola with little more than a minute left in the first for a 2-0 lead.
Carolina has won at least one postseason series in its current run of seven straight playoff appearances, though three have now ended in the Eastern final. Two of those had ended in sweeps in a losing conference-final losing streak that reached 15 games — dating to sweeps in 2009, 2019 and the 2023 first tilt with the Panthers — before Monday's Game 4 win.
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
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