WASHINGTON — Carter Verhaeghe wheeled his arm into a fist pump and, suddenly, two and a half decades of frustration for the Florida Panthers were over.
The forward — the hero of this series for and a game-tying decision — scored with 17:14 left in overtime period and the Panthers beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3, to win the series 4-2 in Game 6.
The drought is over. Florida is going to the second round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs.
It might not sound like much, but it’s a moment South Florida has waited 26 years to see. When the Panthers last won a postseason series, All-Star left wing Jonathan Huberdeau was 2, star center Aleksander Barkov hadn’t yet celebrated his first birthday and star defenseman Aaron Ekblad wasn’t even four months old. Interim coach Andrew Brunette was still mostly toiling in the American Hockey League — he played his first 11 NHL games for the Capitals in 1996 — and general manager Bill Zito had just decided to move from a legal career to work as an agent.
Florida reached the Cup playoffs six more times between then and now, and bowed out in the first round every time. Huberdeau, Barkov and Ekblad — drafted in the top three in three consecutive NHL entry drafts from 2012-2014 — never even got one of those ill-fated first-round series to seven games. Until Friday, nearly a decade of those three stars yielded nothing more than a few All-Star appearances, a handful of good regular seasons and a series of — quite frankly — unimpressive franchise records.
Finally, they’re moving on. All it took was the best team in franchise history, an all-time great offense and, of course, some comebacks.
After winning the Presidents’ Trophy for the first time and averaging more than four goals per game in the regular season, the Panthers quickly slipped to the verge of a collapse. They lost the first and third games in the series, and were 2:04 away from losing Game 4 before Florida scored with its goaltender pulled to force overtime.
The Panthers completed their first comeback in overtime to even the series Monday, then they stormed back from three goals down in the second period Wednesday to win Game 5 and take the series lead. It gave them a chance to clinch Friday and twice came came back from a goal down to stun the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington with a third straight come-from-behind victory.
Both times the Capitals took their lead, Florida answered less than seven minutes later and Barkov, the captain, was able to win the game in the final 5:43 left.
In the first period, the Panthers survived injuries to Ekblad and Ben Chiarot, another failed power play — they went 0 for 2 to finish the series 0 of 18 — and 26 tone-setting hits from Washington to keep the game scoreless.
Sergei Bobrovsky was the reason. The goaltender stopped all 13 shots he faced, including seven high-danger chances from the upset-minded No. 8 seed.
With 16:16 left in the second period, the Capitals finally beat Bobrovsky when Washington forward Nic Dowd hit the post and jumped on his own rebound. Less than three minutes later, left wing Ryan Lomberg pounced on a long rebound and beat Capitals goaltender Ilya Samsonov to tie the game at 1-1 with 15:47 left.
Brunette made a bold decision before the game to bench winger Anthony Duclair — a 30-goal scorer — in favor of Lomberg and it paid off. At the trade deadline, Zito made the bold play to mortgage his future and trade for versatile All-Star forward Claude Giroux and it also paid off.
Washington center Nicklas Backstrom quickly put the Capitals ahead 2-1 in the third period when he deflected a shot past Bobrovsky with 18:23 left. Giroux answered 6:41 later when he sniped a shot over Samsonov’s left shoulder.
With 5:43 left, Barkov scored to give Florida a lead for the first time, but even that couldn’t last. Capitals forward T.J. Oshie scored with 1:01 left to force overtime.
