SUNRISE, Fla. — When the Florida Panthers are headed to extra time within the playoffs, the routine principally goes like this: The horn sounds to finish the third interval, the staff retreats to the locker room for intermission, and the dialogue begins.
There’s just one matter.
“Chirpin’ who gets to score the goal,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice stated.
Turns out, the Panthers don’t actually care who scores it – so long as they rating it. And in these playoffs, no staff has been anyplace close to nearly as good because the Panthers have in further time. They’re 7-0 in extra time on this postseason, the latest of these wins coming Thursday once they rallied to beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“Overtime wins are more fun,” Maurice stated. “They are, right? We’ve had a whole bunch of them. And we haven’t over-celebrated but they are more fun, right? You win a game in regulation, half your team kind of walks off the bench, and they skate and they tap pads and it’s fun. It’s a good thing. … But we allow ourselves to celebrate the overtime wins.”
Vegas nonetheless leads the collection 2-1. Game 4 is Saturday evening on the Panthers‘ house ice.
No staff during the last seven seasons has extra playoff OT wins than Florida, which is 10-0 in its final 10 postseason video games which have gone previous the 60-minute mark – and the Panthers weren’t even within the playoffs for 3 of these years. They have extra playoff extra time wins this 12 months than any two different groups within the NHL mixed, and Sergei Bobrovsky has stopped all 56 pictures that he’s confronted after regulation this spring.
Carter Verhaeghe obtained the gamewinner on Thursday evening 4:27 into extra time. It was his second OT gamewinner of those playoffs, and he grew to become the primary participant in NHL historical past to have a minimum of two OT targets in back-to-back postseasons. He had two final 12 months for the Panthers.
“Whenever we get to overtime, just give the puck to Carter Verhaeghe and then usually good things happen,” Florida’s Nick Cousins stated. “Yeah, I don’t know what it is. It seems like every time we get to overtime, we always have somebody step up. With our group, it’s definitely pretty special.”
It’s not simply Verhaeghe. Matthew Tkachuk has three OT gamewinners for Florida this 12 months, tying the NHL document held by three different gamers. He and Verhaeghe are the primary teammates with a number of OT gamewinners in the identical 12 months since Montreal had three gamers – John Leclair, Guy Carbonneau and Kirk Muller – do it in 1993, the final time the Canadiens gained the Cup.
Cousins and Sam Reinhart have the opposite OT gamewinners for Florida this spring.
“We’ve got guys that can score. We’ve got guys that are comfortable in a situation where they can be asked to bury one,” Florida veteran Eric Staal stated. “We’ve got guys that have some gamebreaking ability and when you have that in your lineup, it takes one quick look. Obviously, we saw that last night but we saw it over the whole course of the playoffs. There are guys in our room that are built for moments like that and hopefully there’s some more ahead here as we continue on.”
This isn’t a brand new factor for Florida, both. Some name the Panthers the Comeback Cats, some say the Cardiac Cats, and each are acceptable. They wanted rallies late within the common season when making their push simply to get into the playoffs, then had a aptitude for drama again and again in Round 1 towards overwhelmingly favored Boston, Round 2 towards Toronto and Round 3 towards Carolina.
Including playoffs, Florida has 91 comeback wins during the last 4 seasons – tying Tampa Bay for probably the most within the NHL over that span.
None of the primary 90 meant as a lot because the one Thursday did. For the primary time, the Panthers have gained a sport within the Cup closing. They’ll want a comeback story to complete the job and win the Cup, however the Panthers are satisfied they’ve the pedigree to do exactly that.
“We just believe,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov stated. “We’re getting into overtime because I think we’re playing the right way, and we just continue to do that, continue to work hard and we’re going to get chances at some point.”
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AP NHL Playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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