Panthers take a commanding 3-0 lead over Hurricanes with a 1-0 victory as goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky sidelines Carolina to take eighth-seeded Florida to the eve of the Stanley Cup Finals
- Florida now has a chance to become just the third No. 8 seed to reach the Finals
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
The Florida Panthers have taken a commanding 3-0 lead over the Carolina Panthers in the Eastern Conference Finals and are now one win away from playing for the Stanley Cup despite being a lowly eighth seed.
Sam Reinhart played the role of hero in Sunrise, Florida on Monday, scoring the lone goal of the game midway through the first period on assists from Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett.
But the greatest achievement was that of Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who stopped all 32 shots he faced on Monday night. He is now 10-1 in his last 11 appearances and has been near perfect in the last eight games. Going back to Game 1 of Round 2 against Toronto, Bobrovsky has not allowed more than two goals in any game, with 296 saves on 309 shots.
By winning again in Sunrise on Wednesday to complete the sweep, the Panthers would become just the third eighth seed in NHL history to reach the Stanley Cup Final: the 2006 Edmonton Oilers reached the Finals, but lost to the Hurricanes , while the Los Angeles Kings won the Cup in 2012.
This marks the 205th time a team has taken a 3–0 lead in NHL playoff history. Of the first 204, 200 won the series. The Panthers are 2-0 in winning the first three games of a series; the hurricanes are 0-5 dropping the first three.
Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky made 30 saves for the shutout Monday night in Florida
Frederik Andersen of the Hurricanes tends to goal against Aleksander Barkov of the Panthers
However, it was not a perfect night for Florida: Captain Aleksander Barkov left with about 7 minutes left in the first period with a lower body injury and did not return, even though the team listed him as questionable.
Frederik Andersen stopped 16 shots for Carolina. The Hurricanes pulled him over at 3:22, desperate for the equalizer, barely managed to test Bobrovsky the rest of the way.
It was the first East Final game in the Panthers’ current arena – the only other time the franchise went that deep into the playoffs was in 1996, when it was played in Miami in a building that was demolished long ago .
It was also probably the first time they played with the Wanamaker Trophy in attendance. Newly crowned PGA Champion Brooks Koepka—a South Florida native and Panthers fan—donned a jersey and brought the big silver cup to the game.
The crowd roared when they saw him with the trophy he won on Sunday. Of course, there’s another silver trophy that Panthers fans would most like to see someone hoist into their jersey in the foreseeable future. And the eighth-seeded Panthers are now just five wins away, tantalizingly close to the journey to the Finals – a journey few could have seen coming after barely making the playoffs and then passing a record-breaking Boston team in round 1 and Toronto in round 2.
The brand new PGA champion Brooks Koepka was present in Sunrise on Monday
Tkachuk (left) and Bobrovsky (right) have been essential in Florida’s postseason surge
Monday’s victory follows two dramatic extra times in Raleigh, both of which ended on goals from Tkachuk. In fact, he is only the 12th player in NHL history with overtime goals in consecutive playoff games.
“He has been everything and even more than we expected,” Barkov said ahead of Monday’s victory.
Here’s what Tkachuk accomplished in his first year with the Panthers:
- One of four players in NHL history with three overtime winners in a postseason.
- Finished the regular season with 109 points and 123 penalty minutes, the first player with that many of each since Eric Lindros in 1995-96 and the first since Sidney Crosby in 2005-06 to have at least 100 in both categories.
- MVP of the All-Star Game, on the Panthers’ home ice.
- First time finalist for the Hart Trophy, hockey’s MVP.