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The horn sounded to signal a third straight trip to the Stanley Cup final, and the Florida Panthers celebrated with a subdued celebration more befitting a regular-season win for the reigning champs.
“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 on 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 the best-of-seven series, setting up a potential rematch of last year’s final.
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 3-3.
“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 have now twice ended Carolina’s push to their 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 on 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.”
