The series between the Florida Panthers vs Carolina Hurricanes is over with the Panthers coming out on top in five games. Florida took care of business in the clinching game with a 5-3 win Raleigh. The Panthers have booked their third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final. It was a good season for the Hurricanes, but they came up short. Let’s take a check of the Panthers vs Hurricanes series recap.
Panthers vs Hurricanes Series Recap
Road Warriors
Good teams find ways to win Stanley Cup Playoff games on the road. The Panthers did that and then some in this series. Florida won all three games at the Lenovo Center in order to win its straight Prince of Wales Trophy.
The Cats scored five goals in each of the three games played in Raleigh. Carolina had a 31-9-1 record at home this season. However, that meant very little to Florida, which looked right at home at the opposition’s rink.
The Panthers did the same thing in both of their previous series prior to the conference final. Florida won clinching games on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Whoever comes out of the Western Conference Final between the Dallas Stars and Edmonton Oilers know that the Panthers won’t be intimidated by the hostile atmosphere. Florida will seemingly relish the chance to silence the opposing fans.
A Tropical Depression of an Ending
Carolina raced out to a 2-0 lead thanks to a pair of first-period goals from Sebastian Aho. However, Florida was able to claw its way back into the fray and eventually overtake the hosts.
The Canes got the first goal of the game for the second straight game. However, they weren’t able to hang onto it this time around.
Seth Jarvis has been good all post-season and got the Canes on level pegging with the Panthers. However, it wasn’t enough as goals by Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett put things out of reach.
The first-period surge petered out and now Carolina is wondering what might have been had it held onto the lead.
Depth Charges
One thing the Panthers have done all post-season is getting scoring from multiple sources. Florida has 10 players with at least 10 points in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That depth has carried them to another deep post-season run.
Aleksander Barkov has 17 points after this game to lead the way in points. However, the wealth is getting spread around. Evan Rodrigues finally scored his first goal of the playoffs in this game, but had dished out 10 assists entering this game.
Bennett, Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk all totaled goals along with Anton Lundell for Florida. This means that teams can’t key on one particular line.
The Hurricanes did boast one of the deeper defensive groups in the league. However, even that talented group has a hard time matching up with the four lines that Florida rolls out.
At Least the Streak is Over
One positive is that the Hurricanes ended their Eastern Conference Final losing streak at 15 games in Game 4. Frederik Andersen got back in track in that game as the Hurricanes avoided the dubious honour of being swept in four straight Eastern Finals.
That 3-0 in Game 4 was the first win in the Eastern Conference Finals since June 1, 2006. The Buffalo Sabres had a more recent victory in a conference final prior to the Game 4 victory.
Carolina fans will still try to dissect this series, but at least it didn’t go into the record book for another ECF sweep. However, the Canes will have to figure out how to move forward and get over the hump.
Main photo by: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
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