The term of Alexander Barkov, Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen in Florida is over. St. Louis Blues and goalkeeper Ville Husso are facing a forced win the night before Thursday as Colorado leads the series 3-1.
The hockey league’s NHL reigning champion Tampa Bay Lightning finished the spring round of the playoffs for their local rivals the Florida Panthers. Tampa took a 2-0 home win Alexander Barkovin from Florida and took the match series to victory 4-0.
Playing back against the wall, Florida battled Tampa steadily for two sets. Tampa only finished the opening goal in the final round Pat Maroon. The final score was 2-0 Ondrej Palat to an empty goal at the end of the match.
It was the first match of the entire season in which the Panthers were left without goals. Lightning guard Andrei Vasilevski made the Panthers goal difficult by stretching in front of the puck as many as 49 times.
In the regular season, Panthers scored a record 4.11 goals per match, but in the final series it was still in a weak mood. Only three goals were scored in four matches.
– Most of our games were smooth, but they ended up on the neck every time. It was difficult, Barkov commented on Florida’s Twitter account.
Finnish players in Florida Barkov, Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen missed power points in the match. No Finns play in Tampa.
– Tampa is really good. They are, for good reason, the Stanley Cup champions. They have found a recipe to win and stuck to it. Of course we want to be like them. This was a learning trip for us, Florida’s interim coach Andrew Brunette said.
A year ago, the Panthers just bowed to Tampa in the opening round of the playoffs. This year, Florida advanced to the second round for the first time since 1996, so the season was the best for the team as a whole in years.
Tampa was the first team to secure its place in the third playoff round, the top four. This is the sixth time in eight years that Tampa has reached the conference finals in the NHL.
Chasing the third consecutive championship, Tampa will face either Carolina or NY Rangers in the finals of the Eastern Conference.
Colorado wins miles away
Nazem Kadri led by a hat trick to the Colorado Avalanche 6–3 victory over the St. Louis Blues. The hat trick was the first career in the NHL playoffs for the Canadian center. Colorado leads match series 3-1 and is no longer a winner from the Western Conference Finals.
Finnish star of Colorado Mikko Rantanen succeeded in scoring for the first time in the playoffs this spring. Rantanen scored the final scores two seconds before the end of the match.
St. Louis led after the opening round David Perronin hit, but Colorado rose to a 4-1 lead after scoring four goals in five minutes in the second set. Perron and Pavel Butshnevitsh narrowed the game to another 3-4 in the second set, but St. Louis could no longer catch Colorado.
Finnish goalkeeper Ville Husso defeated St. Louis 31 times but conceded five goals.