SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers’ first home game in the Eastern Conference finals since 1996 started with a montage of everyone on the roster.
Each player’s photo flashed across the big screen for a few seconds, with his nickname plastered beneath it, and the crowd cheered for everyone. No ovation was bigger than Sergei Bobrovsky’s and the star goaltender, who has rewritten the narrative on his Panthers career in the last month by finally living up to his gargantuan contract, saved his best performance for his newly adoring fans Monday in Game 3 of the East finals.
Florida is one win away from the Stanley Cup Finals after Bobrovsky shut out the Carolina Hurricanes for a 1-0 win in Sunrise.
The Panthers were nine points out of a postseason spot after Christmas, down to the brink of elimination for a full week in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, tasked with three straight series against three of the four best regular-season teams in the NHL and had to play the vast majority of Game 3 without star center Aleksander Barkov, and none of it mattered because of Bobrovsky.
Forward Sam Reinhart scored a power-play goal with 9:51 left in the second period to break a scoreless tie and it was enough. Florida won because of 32 saves from Bobrovsky and has now now won 10 of 11, all since dropping 3 of 4 to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins to start Round 1.
This one was the least dramatic and it was all because of Bobrovsky, who has now saved 182 of 187 shots in his last four games.
For the first time in the East finals, the Panthers scored first. After playing five overtime periods in the first two games of the conference finals and going to overtime in three straight games, Florida handled the Hurricanes in regulation. The only real bit of drama was around Barkov’s status — he exited with a lower-body injury with about seven minutes left in the first period, was questionable to return, according to the team, and never came back.
The All-Star center’s status for Game 4 on Wednesday is unknown.
With or without him, the Panthers can clinch a trip to its first Cup Finals since 1996. It was only their third season of existence and they followed it up with a quarter of a century of first-round exits—and usually worse—before finally breaking through in the last two seasons.
Last year, Florida won a postseason series for the first time since those 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs. This year, it won a game in Round 2 for the first time since then, getting all the way to the ECF and now the brink of the Finals.
Just last month, it took the Panthers until the final week of the regular season to clinch its spot in the Cup playoffs. Now they’re closer to a Stanley Cup than anyone and can become the first team into the Finals on Wednesday.
Although it didn’t require overtime or a comeback as six of Florida’s previous nine wins did, the Panthers’ latest victory was still every bit as close as just about every other one of theirs in the playoffs. Their last 11 games have all been decided by one or two goals.
Florida and Carolina combined for just 17 shots and 14 5-on-5 scoring chances in the first period, going to the first intermission locked in a scoreless tie. Even in the second period, the Panthers only had six shots and seven scoring chances, but drew three penalties and made them count.
After Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei went to the penalty box for slashing forward Anton Lundell with 10:03 left in the period, Reinhart won a faceoff then went to his spot in the slot as Florida’s power play -- without Barkov -- went to work.
The Panthers worked the puck to Sam Bennett behind the net and the center cycled the puck out to Matthew Tkachuk on the right wing. The superstar right wing waited for the defense to come to him, then tapped a pass to Reinhart for a quick turn and shot. The sold-out crowd erupted at the biggest goal FLA Live Arena had seen since it opened in 1998.
When Florida hired coach Paul Maurice and traded multiple stars for Tkachuk in the offseason, it was to be able to win a game like this one. The Panthers got the lead and then did all it could to hang onto it.
Carolina threw everything it had at Florida in the last period. Bobrovsky made 11 third-period saves to finish off his first shutout of the postseason and got just enough help from his defense, which only allowed five rebound attempts, blocked 22 shots, landed 25 hits and forced 10 takeaways.
