Florida Panthers Outclass Carolina Hurricanes to Kick Off Eastern Conference Final
The Florida Panthers did everything the Carolina Hurricanes did to get to the Eastern Conference final, but did it better in their 5-2 Game 1 victory.
Before they ran into the Florida Panthers, the Carolina Hurricanes only gave up more than three goals in a game once in 10 postseason games. Florida broke that seal pretty quickly to open the Eastern Conference final, defeating Carolina 5-2 in its own house.
Less than 48 hours after running the Toronto Maple Leafs out of their own building in Game 7 of their Round 2 series, the Panthers scored two goals in the first period on a Hurricanes team that had only allowed a multi-goal to happen once on its watch in its entire series against the Washington Capitals.
Even after Carolina drew back within a goal in the dying seconds of the first period, the Panthers piled another goal just 3:33 into the second period — and never let their foot off the gas.
“We wanted to be ready for this game,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “We know how hard they play here in this building, so we wanted to be ready for this game, and I think we got rewarded there early on and it was a good start by us, and I think overall, it was a good game.”
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final, Florida was better at everything Carolina excelled at in the first two rounds of the playoffs — it was hard on the forecheck, it got bodies to the front of the net and it got timely saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.
The Panthers’ power play even broke through against a Hurricanes penalty kill that killed off 28 of the 30 penalties it took in the first two rounds — twice.
Carter Verhaeghe beat Carolina’s vaunted penalty kill on Florida’s first crack on the power play, beating Frederik Andersen with a backhand shot 8:30 into the first period following some smooth puck movement from Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov.
Sam Bennett beat it again with the second unit on the ice with a shot from the point that sailed through a sea of bodies at the front of the net 6:08 into the third period to give Florida a three-goal lead that it never relented on.
“We were moving the puck well,” Bennett said. “I think we did a good job of spreading the zone, having lots of puck movement, changing sides, and getting traffic to the net and throwing pucks on net. We were able to find a couple tonight, so that’s definitely big for our power play’s confidence and we had a good special teams tonight.”
Everything in between was a showcase of Florida’s depth.
Aaron Ekblad snapped home a shot from the dot off of a feed from Evan Rodrigues with 6:31 to go in the first period to make it 2-0 Panthers. After Carolina responded with a goal late in the first, it was A.J. Greer who tapped in a feed from Niko Mikkola 3:33 into the second period.
Eetu Luostarinen tacked on Florida’s fifth goal of the night with a one-timer off of a feed from Tomas Nosek — who tacked on his second assist of the night — to put salt into Carolina’s wounds.
The Panthers had five different goal-scorers, with none of them being Barkov, Tkachuk or Sam Reinhart, and still managed to sink one of the NHL’s most staunch defensive teams in that convincing of a fashion.
“Our guys are good guys,” Bobrovsky said, after stopping 31 of 33 shots to finish the Hurricanes off. “We good players, great group of guys, great characters, great skill guys, so it’s fun. The game is quick, they force us to play a hard gain game. A fast game. And we’ll just play our game.”