SUNRISE, Fla. — They knocked out Boston. They knocked out Toronto. They knocked out Carolina.
Jamie Kompon was not knocked out, regardless of Paul Maurice’s greatest efforts.
Let’s clarify: Kompon is an assistant coach for Florida beneath Maurice, who’s in his first 12 months because the Panthers’ head coach. Kompon made a key adjustment to Florida’s energy play earlier in these playoffs, and it paid off when Matthew Tkachuk scored a power-play purpose with 4.9 seconds left Wednesday night time to present Florida a 4-3 win and cap a four-game sweep of the Hurricanes within the Eastern Conference finals.
Everyone celebrates going to the Stanley Cup Final in numerous methods. Tkachuk dropped to his knees and slid throughout the ice, his arms outstretched. Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky threw his arms skyward. Maurice walked to the opposite finish of the Florida bench and punched Kompon within the ribs; it was a celebration, a singular one, however a celebration nonetheless.
“I wanted to make sure he felt that one as much as I did,” Maurice mentioned.
Let that be proof: These days, the Panthers are up for any battle.
Vegas or Dallas – most likely Vegas, because it leads the Western Conference finals 3-0 – awaits the Panthers to determine the Stanley Cup in a collection beginning subsequent week. It’ll be Florida’s second time within the title spherical, its first time on hockey’s greatest stage since 1996 when it was swept by Colorado.
“I still think not many people believe,” Tkachuk mentioned. “I mean, the people in this area support and believe in us – but there’s not many people out there that do, still. And we know that we’ve played some really good teams so far in these playoffs and we know that the next team is going to be unbelievable as well. More points, more wins, more whatever. We’ll be the underdog, trying to prove people wrong again.”
Florida has been making an attempt to show folks mistaken for a quarter-century or so. Thing is, it has not often succeeded. It took without end to develop into Eastern Conference champs once more, as confirmed by the numbers.
Wednesday’s sport was the two,017th for the Panthers since that Stanley Cup Final in 1996. Aleksander Barkov performed in 706 of them, greater than anybody else. Defenseman Aaron Ekblad performed in 660. Roberto Luongo – now a part of the Panthers’ entrance workplace braintrust – stopped 16,298 pictures for the Panthers in that span. They used 412 gamers, had 282 totally different goal-scorers, went by 37 goaltenders, modified coaches 16 occasions, modified area names 5 occasions, and even modified arenas as soon as.
And yearly ended the identical approach: disappointment. There had been various ranges of the anguish – 25 seasons between playoff collection wins, 11 consecutive seasons with no postseason appearances, 10 totally different years of ending final or next-to-last in a division. There was the occasional playoff look or division title thrown in there, primarily solely offering a one-year interval of false hope earlier than the underside fell out once more.
Not anymore.
Even with out – for now, anyway – the final word silver prize that hockey gamers chase from the second they take these first awkward wobbly steps onto the ice in hand-me-down skates and with a stick that’s most likely too massive, that is the golden age of Panthers hockey.
“We have people believing in this team,” proprietor Vincent Viola mentioned earlier in these playoffs, and he’s not mistaken.
The Panthers made the qualifying spherical within the pandemic-interrupted season ending in 2020, then the primary spherical of the playoffs in 2021, the second spherical and a Presidents’ Trophy in 2022, and now have an opportunity to win the Stanley Cup.
“Waiting, working to get here, to get to this opportunity,” Ekblad mentioned. “Obviously, it’s been a long time coming. For us, for them, it’s huge, exciting.”
Making this one even higher, maybe, is that this: Few may have seen this run coming.
Florida completed the common season with 92 factors, the fewest of any of the 16 playoff groups – and one fewer level than Calgary, a staff that didn’t even make the West playoffs. The Panthers needed to play Boston in Round 1; all of the Bruins did was submit the most effective common season in NHL historical past. They needed to play Toronto in Round 2; the Maple Leafs tied for the fourth-most factors within the league. They needed to play Carolina in Round 3; the Hurricanes had the NHL’s second-best file.
Boston wasted a 3-1 lead and misplaced in seven. Toronto lasted 5 video games. Carolina misplaced all 4. The Panthers have gained 11 of their final 12 contests in opposition to principally the very best groups they may have confronted. Only two different groups in NHL historical past have eradicated three of the league’s high 4 groups in the identical postseason; they had been Montreal in 1969 and the New York Islanders in 1980.
They each gained the Cup in these seasons.
Florida will attempt to be part of them.
“We know what we have in there, we know how to play, the right way to play, (and) we know what makes us successful,” Tkachuk mentioned. “Being in it with the guys and seeing the belief and just the calmness to us is really something special.”
With that, they hope yet one more knockout punch awaits.
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