5 storylines to watch as Panthers advance to second straight Eastern Conference final

Source: The New York Times
Author: Michael Russo

BOSTON -- The Florida Panthers took care of business by dispatching the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Friday night, winning their second-round series in six games to advance to the Eastern Conference final for the second year in a row.

They'll face the New York Rangers starting in Manhattan on Wednesday night.

Despite winning the Prince of Wales Trophy last year and advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1996, there seems to be a different vibe with this year's team. Everything is business-like -- a different focus compared to a year ago when the Panthers eked into the playoffs and were just happy to be there.

"It's almost a 180 in handling what we do, and it started in training camp -- the focus by the group," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "It's been an unusually focused group. It took me a while to figure that out. I joked around a lot with the team last year. I told a lot of semi-offside jokes. Everybody would laugh. It was part of that culture of who we were. So I either got way less funny this year or these guys are way more serious."

In other words, failing to finish off last year's Cinderella run that started with a comeback from 3-1 down to upset the Bruins has given this tremendous hockey team a singular focus on bringing a Stanley Cup to South Florida for the first time since the franchise's 1993 inception.

But first thing's first, standing in their way will be the Presidents' Trophy-winning Rangers, who on Thursday thwarted the Carolina Hurricanes' attempted 3-0 series comeback with a third-period comeback behind Chris Kreider's natural hat trick in Game 6.

The Panthers were 2-0-1 against the Rangers during the regular season.

Here are five Panthers' storylines to watch against the Rangers:

Short-handed game-winners. A four-point Game 2. Walking down Broadway by splitting three defenders for a Game 4 winner. A game-saving block. Aleksander Barkov has followed an 80-point regular season, which may include winning his second career Selke Trophy on Saturday, with a brilliant first two rounds.

After doubling his career hits total in regular season, he not only has been arguably Florida's most physical player but has also been its best game-breaker. He has a team-leading three game-winners in the playoffs and is one behind Matthew Tkachuk for the team lead with 13 points. Barkov is the Panthers' all-time leader with 34 assists and 50 points in 58 career playoff games.

We know the Rangers have Igor Shesterkin, who is a beast and this postseason is 8-2 with a 2.40 goals-against average, a .923 save percentage and is backstopping the league-leading 89.5 percent penalty kill. And we know Sergei Bobrovsky is a Vezina Trophy finalist this season and backstopped the Panthers to the Cup Final last season.

But Bobrovsky has had an up-and-down playoff career, and the Rangers are stacked with star players and have an elite power play featuring Kreider, Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck and Adam Fox.

Bobrovsky has also had a strange playoffs, partly because, as Maurice explained, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Bruins aren't volume shooters and the Panthers defend so well. For instance, the Bruins had 18 shots or fewer in Games 2 through 4. The Bruins went one stretch of 14:11 on Friday without a shot. Facing so little action for long stretches will naturally hurt Bobrovsky's save percentage (.896 through Thursday), but he's been good when it matters, with an 8-3 record.

The balance on the Panthers' top three lines is impressive.

Sam Bennett's return from a broken hand or wrist in Game 3 of the Bruins series allowed Maurice to even out his lines by reuniting Vladimir Tarasenko, Barkov and Sam Reinhart, with Carter Verhaeghe, Bennett and Tkachuk on another unit, and Eeto Luostarinen, Anton Lundell and Evan Rodrigues together.

The latter may have been Florida's two best lines in Games 3 and 4 in Boston.

Reinhart -- who scored 57 goals in the regular season, has five in the playoffs and doesn't cheat the game in any area -- has incredible chemistry with Barkov, and just imagine a second line that boasts Verhaeghe, one of hockey's most clutch playoff performers, and Tkachuk.

Verhaeghe scored the Game 3 winner, owns five career playoff overtime goals and is the Panthers' all-time leader in playoff goals with 21. And Tkachuk, who was an absolute stud throughout last year's run until he broke his sternum in the Stanley Cup Final, always has the flair for the dramatic, even though he was actually pretty quiet against the Bruins.

One big reason the Panthers have had a solid power play (23.7 percent through Thursday) and penalty kill (85.3 percent) in the playoffs is the play of their top four on the back end.

Gustav Forsling, who led the NHL with a plus-56 rating in the regular season, and Aaron Ekblad are as good as it gets. They had a tough Game 1 in the first round, but Ekblad said they looked in the mirror after that, and they were outstanding in Games 2 through 5. Forsling, who scored the series-clinching goal Friday, is smooth in all facets of the game and has one of the best sticks away from the puck. Ekblad is physical and can hammer the puck.

Then you have a second pair of towering Niko Mikkola and Brandon Montour. In this year's playoffs, Mikkola has taken on the physical role filled by Radko Gudas in 2023. And Montour can skate forever and obliterate the puck on the power play.

Maurice gushed over the Panthers' "incredible discipline" against the Bruins. He knows that must continue against the Rangers or they could be toast.

The Rangers are strong five-on-five with their speed up the middle of the ice, but that's also an area the Panthers excel. So if they can keep the Rangers off the power play, that should bode well.

The Rangers' power play has scored on 31.4 percent of its chances this postseason.