Dominant third period turns close Game 3 into another Panthers rout over Hurricanes
After a pair of blowout wins to begin the Eastern Conference final, the Florida Panthers were finally tested in Game 3 by the Carolina Hurricanes.
Well, for two periods.
But in the end, the Panthers' depth pushed them over their opponent — and now within one win of a return to the Stanley Cup Final.
Forward Jesper Boqvist, who returned to the lineup with star winger Sam Reinhart sidelined with a lower-body injury, scored the go-ahead goal to start a five-goal onslaught in the third period to lift Florida to a 6-2 win over the Hurricanes on Saturday at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Panthers are now up 3-0 in the best-of-7 series and are one win from advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for a third consecutive season. Game 4, their first chance to wrap up the series, is at 8 p.m. Monday from Amerant Bank Arena.
Boqvist's goal, scored 1:29 into the third period, came after defenseman Aaron Ekblad forced a turnover at center ice. He fed the puck to Evan Rodrigues, who tapped the puck to Boqvist in stride entering the offensive zone. Boqvist charged down the ice and maneuvered past Hurricanes defenseman Dmitry Orlov before burying a pass past Carolina goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov.
Florida was just getting started.
Niko Mikkola made it 3-1 on a shot from the left circle on a feed from Sam Bennett 6:26 in to the third period. Mikkola also opened scoring 12:07 into regulation on backhanded shot that deflected off Orlov's stick and past Kochetkov, who started over Frederik Anderen on Saturday. It was just the second multi-goal game of Mikkola's career. However, Mikkola left the game in the third period after crashing into the boards, holding his right shoulder.
And then Aleksander Barkov scored twice — at 6:55 and 9:31 of the period — to push the lead to 5-1.
And then Brad Marchand scored on a two-on-one with Anton Lundell at 10:37 of the third period to make it 6-1.
That's five goals in a span of 9:08 to go from a tied game to an absolute rout.
Carolina's only responses came on the power play. The first was with 5:09 left in the second period when Logan Stankoven got a rebound of a Brent Burns shot and sent it just over Sergei Bobrovsky's left pad to tie the game at 1-1. Bobrovsky, who stopped the first 13 shots he faced to begin the game, had robbed Stankoven of a Grade A chance earlier in the period.
The Hurricanes' Seth Jarvis then scored on the power play with 8:59 left to cut Florida's lead to 6-2.
By that point, though, the game was all but over.
This story will be updated.
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