Redemption: Florida Panthers Finally Break Through to Win Their First Stanley Cup

REDEMPTION

Florida Panthers Finally Break Through to Win Their First Stanley Cup

Power-play goal? Big-Game Bob? Panthers bring back playoff hockey with winning script in Game 1

Tkachuk had ‘chills’ at opening scene in Panthers 3-2 win

BY DAVE HYDE · APRIL 21, 2024

SUNRISE — It’s always the perfect win when it happens in the playoffs, no matter how it happens, and this first one brought an added surprise for Matthew Tkachuk in studying the statistics sheet.

“Everyone had a hit,’’ he said. Every Florida Panther. Every Tampa Bay Lightning.

“I don’t think I’ve seen that before,’’ the Panthers forward said Sunday after the Panthers’ 3-2 win in Game 1 of their firstround series. “Somebody (Tampa Bay’s Matt Dumba) had 10. Yeah, a lot of hits.”

Welcome back, playoff hockey. Good to see you again. The noise. The stakes. The intensity in the crowd matching the intensity on the ice. Sunday’s opening scene was enough to give Tkachuk goosebumps from the national anthem through his opening shifts.

“Very cool,’’ he said.

The accompanying script was equally cool for the Panthers. They played hard at that start. They didn’t just take a 1-0 lead on Sam Reinhart’s opening shot. They took the game’s first eight shots while holding Tampa Bay shot-less for 15 minutes.

“They are at home, it’s Game 1, the crowd is pumped and they had lots of energy,’’ Tampa

Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Give them tons of credit. They went to their game plan and we abandoned ours before it even started.

“Give our guys credit. They weathered the storm for 12, 13 minutes and then we played. But that’s the problem … The margins of error are much smaller now. You can’t just play for 45 minutes.”

Don’t expect that start to happen again. Certainly not in Tuesday’s Game 2 in Sunrise. Not from a Tampa Bay team full of a two-time Stanley Cup champions. But Game 1 followed a script the Panthers would have written right from that strong start.

It wasn’t always pretty.

“Second period, shots are six and five, just a grinder,’’ as Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.

It wasn’t some loud statement about style or talent setting up changes for Game 2.

“Both teams are going to read the same book a couple of times now,’’ Maurice said of reviewing this first game. “Both teams will see things they did well. Both teams will see places they want to get better. You’re not changing a whole lot.”

You can check the boxes about what the Panthers did well Sunday:

They had two penalties — and one until the final minutes. That matters because the Panthers had the second-most penalty minutes this season and Tampa Bay has the league’s top power play. It scored on that second power play to cut the margin to 3-2 with 9.3 seconds left.

Their scorers scored — and once on a power play. Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Tkachuk (on an empty-netter) each had goals. Verhaeghe’s goal came when he tipped in a perfect pass from Aleksander Barkov (“I didn’t even see the puck; it just hit my stick,’’ Verhaeghe said) 58 seconds into the third period to break open a 1-1 game. The added boost is it came on a power play.

“We felt from our game against Dallas in mid-March to coming into this game we’ve had some chances on our power play that haven’t gone,’’ Maurice said. “You need to feel good about your power play, to feel it keeps momentum for you. That was the key part of the goal — we haven’t been able to get one behind any goalie for the last little while. We’ve been struggling.

“So, confidence. You want your shooters to get pucks. You want them to feel good. It’s such a confidence game for those guys.”

Sergei Bobrovsky looked like Big-Game Bob. He only faced 19 shots. That’s one way to limit the fifth-ranked offense at 3.56 goals a game The other way is to have Bobrovsky come up with some big saves like on Michael Eyssimont’s breakaway in the last minute of the first period or a succession of point-blank shots in the final minutes starting with Brayden Point on the doorstep. Finally, there was the physical play. Maurice was right in that it wasn’t, ‘”hyperphysical,” in the way playoff games get. But the Panthers led the league with 28 hits a game this year. They had 54 hits Sunday. Tampa Bay had 55.

“You don’t get to pick,’’ he said of following this style of play. “You like to think you get to pick the way the game’s played, and we tell ourselves that. But at the end of the game the two teams say how the game looked … I think it’s going to look like this until somebody has to change what they’re doing because it’s not working for them.

“There wasn’t enough sustained action by either team for either team to say, ‘We got it.’” They got one win. They need four to advance. To Game 2 we go.

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky grabs a loose puck against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs in Sunrise on April 21, 2024. JOHN MCCALL / SUN SENTINEL

Carter Verhaeghe’s long journey to front of net lifts Panthers to 2-0 lead vs. Lightning

Panthers, Bobrovsky bring overtime magic again in Game 2 win against Tampa Bay

BY DAVE HYDE · APRIL 24, 2024

SUNRISE — There was no road map to the front of the net for Carter Verhaeghe on Tuesday night, no matter how many times he’s found his way there for the Florida Panthers.

There was just a lot of work starting with teams in junior hockey with the Niagra IceDogs, where he didn’t score until 18 games into his first season. He kept working in the minors with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, where he couldn’t get enough playing time one year so he also played with a lower-level, minor-league team, the Missouri Mavericks. He led the Syracuse Crunch in scoring another year. He was traded for a goalie who eventually played three NHL games. He kept working to be a bit part of the Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup team in 2020, and they promptly traded him to the Panthers, his fourth organization.

Every journey is different, and there’s nothing in Verhaeghe’s first seven years of pro hockey to say he’d be scoring his fifth overtime playoff goal Tuesday to give the Panthers a 3-2 win in Game 2 against Tampa Bay. Think of that: The Panthers have won 10 consecutive postseason overtime games the last three seasons, and Verhaeghe’s goals have

ended five of them.

He’s now one behind Hall of Famers

Maurice Richard and Joe Sakic in the record books for overtime playoff goals scored, despite playing about a quarter of their games.

“Those are some pretty good players,’’ Verhaeghe said. “But, honestly, we go out (in overtime), we’re pretty confident. Someone’s got to make a play, eventually.”

He smiled. “Being in the conversation with those guys is pretty crazy.”

Not that Verhaeghe was the whole show in putting the Panthers up 2-0 in this best-ofseven series. Not by a long shot. So much of Game 2 revolved around the two goalies, the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, and their hockey version of H-O-R-S-E.

In the second period, Bobrovsky made a no-look, back-to-the-shooter, dive-across-the-goal, stop-the-puck-with-anoutstretched-forearm save of Matt Dumba’s backhand that wins nights, leads highlight films and is the pose of anyone considering a statue of him. Which the Panthers just might if he carries another run through spring.

“My vantage point was the bench, and I

was shocked,’’ Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said of that save.

Vasilevskiy immediately answered with a combination stopping three, consecutive, rat-a-tat Panthers shots one minute and a snap-glove save of Matthew Tkachuk the next. Tkachuk hung his stick over his shoulders and looked skyward he was so sure of his chance.

“That could’ve sunk us,’’ Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said.

Bobrovsky then stuck out his left leg and needed his left skate to stop Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli from stuffing in the puck. Steven Stamkos then shoved everyone into the net trying to get the lost puck to accompany them.

Do you see what this dramatic night of hockey involved? Vasilevskiy made a thirdperiod breakaway stop of Ekblad even as the Panthers killed off a four-minute penalty.

Bobrovsky answered by stopping former teammate Anthony Duclair on a breakaway in the last minute of regulation time.

“You’re looking at two of the best,’’ Cooper said. “You sit here in the biggest stage in the greatest league in the world and watch guys like that go toe-to-toe … sometimes you

“He’s got that clutch gene� A lot of years of hard work go into that� ”

Defenseman

Aaron Ekblad on Verhaeghe

have to sit here — and I’m coach of one of the teams — and marvel at some of the saves that were made.”

Verhaeghe’s winning goal was the end product of regular grinding. Tkachuk got the puck off the boards. Anton Lundell took the puck and drew the defense to him. Verhaeghe went to the front of the net, took Lundell’s pass and patiently, so patiently in the manner he waited those seven years for his break, now waited for Vasilevskiy to move and leave an open stretch of net. That’s all he needed

“He’s got that clutch gene,’’ Ekblad said, sitting beside Verhaeghe afterward. “A lot of years of hard work go into that.”

The playoffs are a run of attrition, and the Panthers lost center Sam Bennett when

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers center Carter Verhaeghe (23) scores against Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (88) during an overtime period of Game 2 of the first round of an NHL Stanley Cup Playoff series, April 23, 2024, in Sunrise, Fla. The Panthers beat the Lightning 3-2 in overtime. WILFREDO LEE / ASSOCIATED PRESS

How do you lose a game you dominate? Somehow, Panthers are down 2-1 to Rangers

New York’s second straight overtime win gives them 2-1 series lead

BY DAVE HYDE · MAY 26, 2024

SUNRISE — Afterward, the Florida Panthers stayed on their bench, waiting and waiting for the New York Rangers winning goal to be ruled official. The Rangers bench had emptied, the players already celebrating in their locker room. The Panthers waited, silent, as if in disbelief at what just happened. How do you lose a game you’ve controlled? How can you fall behind in a series you’ve looked in charge most of the way?

They had 108 shot attempts to the Rangers’ 44. They had two power-play goals to none for the Rangers. They controlled play so thoroughly in the third period the Rangers seemed happy to just throw the puck to the other end for constant icing.

“Under siege,’’ was the term New York coach Peter Laviolette used for his team’s condition in the third period.

Yet Laviolette was Sunday’s winner, his team up 2-to-1 in the series, this game just another in the Rangers’ postseason of big moments.

This day came down to small lapses, odd

luck and good Rangers counter-punching that took advantage of any crease in the Panthers game. In short, it’s a big mistake not to notice the Panthers’ little mistakes that led to a simple shot from the point being deflected by Alex Wennberg for the game-winner.

New York, for instance, scored two goals in 25 seconds in the first period. Did one Panthers mistake lead to a quick second? Or take the their short-handed goal in the second period. Vincent Trocheck, the Rangers’ best player in the series, wasn’t knocked off the puck by Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour and passed to Barclay Goodrow for the score.

Sam Reinhart had two power-play goals Sunday, but calls the Panthers a “defensive team at heart” and that’s where Game 3 was lost.

“Our expectation at home is that we can keep it to two (opposing goals), maybe three at home,’’ Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “Not 4.”

The Rangers got five.

“We need to look at our mistakes, see where we can get better,’’ Barkov said. Then, as if to be sure, he said, “There were some good things in this game.”

The Panthers, for instance, came back from a 4-2 deficit in the third period. Maurice juggled the Panthers lines to find a spark. Barkov tipped in one. Gustav Forsling tied up the game as his offensive game keeps picking up.

That got back to the central truth of this series: The Panthers carried much of the play. After their two-goal comeback in the third period, they kept coming so hard that Laviolette took a timeout.

It was a well-placed one, too. The Rangers’ magic of Matt Rempe was gone, as his limited game wasn’t even allowed on the ice in the third period. The Rangers seemed to settle the game — at least until Jacob Trouba took his third penalty of the day. As opposed to a previous, dangerous elbow thrown at Evan Rodrigues, this one came after his stick broke and he wrestled a driving Matthew Tkachuk

to the ice.

The Panthers had the Rangers on the ropes for the final minutes of regulation, getting chance after chance, Forsling hitting the post to Bennett just unable to tee up the puck for a good shot.

Yet it was 4-4.

“We needed to get back to work, get back on the forecheck,’’ Laviollette said. “We were taking a lot of heat in the third period. I don’t necessarily think one period leads to the next period … Everything plays out differently. It was a chance to re-set.”

The Rangers kept getting the moments they needed, too. That’s been a Panthers hallmark the past two springs. Wennberg delivered the overtime goal Sunday, just as Goodrow did in Game 2.

The Panthers have dominated large stretches of play.

They’re also down 2-1 in the series.

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice reacts during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the New York Rangers at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on May 26, 2024. JOHN MCCALL / SUN SENTINEL

Panthers, Lundell take over in third period to stand one win from Stanley Cup Final

Panthers win Game 5, 3-2, and can take series Saturday in Sunrise

BY DAVE HYDE · MAY 30, 2024

When Anton Lundell was a 13-year-old growing up in Finland, admiring the play of countrymate Aleksander Barkov with the Florida Panthers, his family took a vacation to New York. His father, Jan, a star goalie in the Finnish league, took him to tour an empty Madison Square Garden.

On Thursday night, an all-grown-up Lundell wasn’t sightseeing in Madison Square Garden. He was the sight.

He swooped into the New York Rangers zone, put a shot under the armpit of goalie Igor Shesterkin and scored the kind of goal in Madison Square Garden that his 13-year-old self couldn’t even dream up.

“Unreal,” he called that broke a tie for good in their a 3-2 win in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final.

Someone pinch him.

Or better yet, pinch yourself.

This team isn’t dreaming. That was last spring’s theme for them. They’re too good this season for simple dreaming. They’re one win from a repeat trip to the Stanley Cup Final, and they’re coming home for Game 6 in Sunrise to get it Saturday night.

One more win. One more good night.

Maybe just one more great third period like they had again Thursday night and they’ll be playing Dallas or Edmonton for the Stanley Cup.

“We just decided after the second period it was time to step up,” Lundell said.

“Everybody did. We all wanted to step up.”

They’d met the Rangers’ best game for an even two periods. Can the Rangers produce that for a full game Saturday? Can they match the Panthers when they stepped up their game in the third period?

All you heard out of New York before this was the Rangers stars needed to step up. So when Chris Kreider scored a back-handed goal in the second period Thursday for a 1-0 lead here was double-applause in Madison Square Garden for one of their stars coming through in such an opportunistic way.

That’s the Rangers at their best. Sudden. Opportunistic.

The Panthers, meanwhile, keep getting big moments from their biggest stars. Gustav Forsling made a simple poke check just inside the Panthers zone in Thursday’s second period, sprinted down the ice, took a threaded pass from Sam Bennett and put into the net

to tie it 1-1. He continues to elevate his game with an offensive component these playoffs.

There it stood after an even two periods when Lundell noted everyone said it was time to be better. “Baby Barkov,” they call him. Much of that is they’re both Finnish, both centers, both talented. Lundell lived with Barkov three years ago as a rookie.

“I don’t think I could’ve had a better guy to be here for me,” Lundell said. “Coming here, had a hard time with the language, hard time with everything living in America. It was difficult. He helped with everything.”

Lundell, to be sure, isn’t Barkov.

“He’s special, unique,” Lundell said.

Lundell’s play took a leap last postseason and another one this spring. Coach Paul Maurice moved him up to the second-line center earlier this series for a while. Now he was back on the third line, and you could see its good work on three successive shifts in the third period. That’s part of the Panthers’ overall third-period blueprint. They’ve scored 14 more third-period goals in the playoffs than opponents.

First, Lundell made a move where he put the puck through his legs in front of

“Coming here, had a hard time with the language, hard time with everything living in America � It was difficult � He helped with everything�”

Anton Lundell on Aleksander Barkov

Shesterkin to get off a shot. Next shift, linemate Eetu Luostarinen did the same move, creating another good chance.

“I thought it was important for our line to get energy,” Lundell said. “We had some great chances and, finally, we got the goal as well.”

Vladimir Tarasenko moved to the net to screen Shesterkin. That helped Lundell’s shot to sneak through an opening into the net, give the Panthers a 2-1 lead and shift this game completely.

“His history, he played with men in the Finnish Elite League and he put up numbers,” Maurice said of Lundell. “The guy can do

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers’ Anton Lundell (15) celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against the New York Rangers during the third period of Game 5 in the Eastern Conference finals of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs on May 30, 2024, in New York, N.Y. The Panthers won 3-2. FRANK FRANKLIN II / ASSOCIATED PRESS

some things offensively. I’m just happy for one to go in, because he’s had a bunch of chances …I know the skill’s there, because he’s in the two-hole on our shootouts. He’s lights-out. He’s still young. That’s the thing we always have to remind (ourselves.) He’s still a young player, but a goal in a game like this on the road, Game 5 — and I will call it a bit of a de facto game-winner, because it changed the game.”

Sam Bennett’s empty-netter made it 3-1 and Madison Square Garden started emptying. The Rangers got a last-minute goal, but this night was done. The Panthers were coming home needing one more win to get back to the Final they’ve thought of all year. Not that they’re thinking ahead like that.

“I don’t think we’ve thought about it at all,” Bennett said. “Our approach is one game at a time. We’ve got business to take care of still. All we’re thinking about is Game 6 at home.”

They had a good trip to New York — a good couple of trips, really, as they’ve won two of three games in Madison Square Garden this series. They just don’t want to return there for a Game 7.

ABOVE RIGHT: New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin (31) reacts as the Florida Panthers celebrate a goal by Gustav Forsling (42) during the second period. FRANK FRANKLIN II / ASSOCIATED PRESS

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers’ Anton Lundell (15) and New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin (31) watch the puck during the third period.

FRANK FRANKLIN II / ASSOCIATED PRESS

RIGHT: Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky (72) stops a shot by New York Rangers’ Mika Zibanejad (93) as Niko Mikkola (77) defends in the first period. FRANK FRANKLIN II / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Big-Game Bob carried Game 1; now what does Panthers win mean for Game 2?

BY DAVE HYDE · JUNE 9, 2024

SUNRISE — The easy part was at the end of Saturday night. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped his 32nd and final shot, going down to the ice on his knees to smother the puck, and the chant started in the arena with a rising energy as the finish line neared.

“Bob-by! Bob-by!’’ Florida Panthers fans chanted.

This was the first South Florida crowd to witness Game 1 of a Stanley Cup Final, and the first to watch the Panthers take the lead in the championship series with a 3-0 win against Edmonton.

Bob-by! Bob-by!”

As the noise faded, as the day changed, as Monday’s Game 2 came into view by Sunday, the question turned from Bobrovsky’s great game and the Panthers landing the first punch to simply this in a championship series: What did Game 1 mean?

“We liked our third period,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “That’s how we’d like to look.”

The first two periods, to be sure, weren’t the Panthers’ precise blueprint to victory. Edmonton had two breakaways in the first period. Their big guns, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl had their good chances on Bobrovsky’s doorstep. And the Panthers flirted with disaster by taking three needless penalties

in the first two periods to give the postseason’s most potent power play its chances.

“If we play like that,” Edmonton’s Zach Hyman said, “we’re going to be fine.”

It’s true, some of the numbers have trended the other way all Panthers playoffs. They’re the ones outshooting opponents, not facing a 32-18 deficit like in Game 1. They’re the defense shutting down the other side for long stretches, not going more than 10 minutes without a shot like they did Saturday.

They’ve also had the most scoring chances through this postseason. Edmonton had an 18-6 advantage in “high-danger” chances, according to the analytic web site Natural Stat Trick.

Maybe, as Edmonton saw it, there was some karmic payback. It was outshot by Dallas 35-10 in clinching the Western Conference Final and still won.

“Maybe it was the hockey gods getting us back for that game where we probably didn’t deserve to win,” said McDavid, who had six shots in Game 1. “(Saturday), maybe we deserved at least one goal, maybe two goals we didn’t find a way to get them.”

The Panthers had two goals in their measly five shots into the second period. The easy read is Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner didn’t match Bobrovsky. Maybe it plays out over the

series, too? After one game, everything is in play.

The Panthers goals that carried the night were two very-Panther goals. Carter Verhaeghe scored on a tic-tac-toe passing play that broke down Edmonton’s defense, and Sam Bennett’s winning forecheck set up Evan Rodrigues for the second goal.

Now, about limiting Edmonton’s chances?

“What can you learn from the game is the most important thing,” Maurice said. “Where can you do better? You want to temper all of that when you sit down and watch your video because the other team gets paid too. They’ve got some pretty good players over there. so if you just play your best game what does that look like? They don’t touch the puck?

“We fight the extremes of this mentally as well. You lose the game, it’s not the end of the world. You win a game, you’re not that good. Don’t get that carried away with it. That (game’s) kind of stuck in the middle.”

What’s it say that the Panthers didn’t play their best and won? And Bobrovsky had this kind of game?

“I just play my structure and just try to squeeze the gap and just do my best to (make the) stop,” Bobrovsky said. “We re-set, get ready for the next one.”

He is like that, machine-like, implacable,

restrained with his words in public as much as movement in the crease. He showed a talent for conservation not just of body parts in making saves, but of psyche from the game’s opening seconds when Hyman was alone with the puck before Bobrovsky after a Panthers turnover. Hyman’s shot went off Bobrovsky’s mask.

“Cracked it with his head,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.

That was just the start of a night that needed Olympic judges to score Bobrovsky’s best save.

“Every goalie has strengths and weaknesses,” Knoblauch said. “Every system has strengths and weaknesses. And then, there’s luck.”

Edmonton seemed to be falling on that idea from Game 1. The Panthers think they got to the game they wanted in the third period. Game 2 will translate everything. The only thing for sure is it’s far too early to try to pry any good thoughts out of Bobrovsky, like what winning the Stanley Cup would mean to him.

“I’m here for the guys playing, not for myself,” he said. “I’m nothing without them.”

He’s the third-oldest player in the series at 35. He was the best player in Game 1. Now comes the question the series will answer: What did that Panthers win mean?

Florida Panthers defeated captain Connor McDavid (97) and the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on June 8, 2024. MIKE STOCKER / SUN SENTINEL

OPPOSITE: Florida Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling (42) goes up against Edmonton Oilers left wing Zach Hyman (18) in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on June 8, 2024. MIKE STOCKER / SUN SENTINEL

BELOW LEFT: Florida Panthers fans throw rats on the ice after their victory in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise on June 8, 2024. MIKE STOCKER SUN SENTINEL

LEFT: