Panthers wanted to put Hurricanes' ‘backs against the wall.' Mission accomplished
The Florida Panthers had just one goal in mind on Thursday. They already took the series opener in the Eastern Conference final against the Carolina Hurricanes in convincing fashion.
Why stop there?
'We want to get greedy,' defenseman Seth Jones said. 'We want to come in here and not just roll over and not be OK with playing an OK game just because we stole one on the road. We want to come here, get two [wins] and put their backs against the wall.'
Mission accomplished.
The Panthers flat-out dominated the Hurricanes on Thursday, cruising to a 5-0 win at the Lenovo Center to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series with a spot in a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final at stake.
Defenseman Gustav Forsling opened scoring 1:17 into regulation. Star winger Matthew Tkachuk broke a 10-game goal drought. Sam Bennett scored twice to give him three in the series and nine for the playoffs, moving him into a tie with Dallas' Mikko Rantanen for the most this postseason. Carter Verhaeghe had three primary assists. They chased Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen after two periods, with Andersen giving up nine total goals through the first five periods of the series.
For good measure, Aleksander Barkov added a power-play goal in the third period against Pyotr Kochtekov to round out scoring.
But perhaps the most dominant aspect of the win came on the defensive end. Florida held Carolina, the team that ranked second in the NHL in the regular season with an average of 31.7 shots on goal per game, to just 16 shots on goal — their lowest single-game mark of the playoffs (the previous was 18 in their 3-1 win over the Washington Capitals on May 15). Sergei Bobrovsky stopped them all for his third shutout of the postseason.
And Florida did this without star winger Sam Reinhart, one of three finalists for the Selke Trophy given annually to the league's top defensive forward, for the majority of the game. Reinhart exited the game after taking a hip check by Carolina forward Sebastian Aho with about five minutes left in the first period and was ruled out with a lower-body injury.
This story will be updated.
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