The Florida Panthers’ incredible playoff spring continued the night before Saturday Finnish time, when the team defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 3–2 and took the series 4–1.
At the same time, the team advanced to the conference finals for the first time in almost 30 years. The last time Florida advanced to the top four was in 1996.
Florida’s victory in the fifth thriller-like match was only unraveled in the second half of the first overtime, when Nick Cousins succeeded in scoring in 75:32.
Florida led the match after the opening set 2–0 By Aaron Ekblad and Carter Verhaeghen with goals. Morgan Rielly brought the home team within a goal in the second period. In the second period, Rielly had time to fan wildly for his second hit of the evening, but the unclear situation was judged as a disallowed goal after a long video review.
In the end, the accepted equalizer was scored by Toronto’s Swedish striker William Nylander in the second half of the final set.
Sergei Bobrovsky stretched to 50 saves in Florida’s goal, while Joseph Woll made 41 saves.
Florida’s Finnish trio Alexander Barkov, Eetu Luostarinen and Anton Lundell missed the match by power points.
The victory over Toronto is Florida’s second big surprise of the spring. In the first round, the Panthers knocked off Boston, who set the record for wins and points in the regular season, even though Boston entered the opening round with a 43-point lead at the bottom of the regular season. Florida was only the 17th best team in the series.
The end of Toronto’s season immediately started a discussion about it in Sweden (you switch to another service)could the superstar William Nylander to join the Swedish World Cup team. Sweden’s head coach Sam Hallam has left five spots open for potential NHL signings. Sweden opened the tournament on Friday with a 1-0 win over Germany.
Against Carolina in the conference finals
In the conference finals, Florida will face the Carolina Hurricanes, who beat the New Jersey Devils 4–1 in their own series.
Playing a great season, reaching over a hundred power points in the regular season Matthew Tkachuk assured that Florida’s pace will not freeze even in the conference finals.
– No one in the world believed that we would be here. We don’t care about other people’s opinions. We know that the situation is exactly the same in the conference finals, Thackhuk acknowledged.
Florida’s Finnish captain Aleksander Barkov was happy after the victory.
– This is an incredible feeling. Playing in the finals of the Eastern Conference is a really big deal for us. Everyone gave their all, Barkov commented.
In the conference finals, we will see a lot of Finns, because Carolina will be represented Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teräväinen, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jesse Puljujärvi and Antti Raanta.
A gloomy minute and a half turned out to be Edmonton’s fate
In the second match of the night, the Vegas Golden Knights took a 4–3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers and took a 3–2 lead in the series.
The fifth meeting between the teams was clearly the most even in the light of the numbers.
Edmonton superstar Connor McDavid took the visitors into the lead after only three minutes of play. Jack Eichel tied the game less than a minute later.
However, Edmonton went into the break with a 2–1 lead, because Zach Hyman gave the visitors the lead again.
The second set was a Vegas show, as the home team managed to score no less than three times – and in just under a minute and a half.
First Mark Stone tied the game at 2–2. Less than half a minute later Reilly Smith took the home team into the lead and exactly one minute from the lead Nicolas Hague hit Vegas for a 4–2 lead. A total of 18 saves Stuart Skinner made room at the same time To Jack Campbell Edmonton goal.
McDavid narrowed the game to 3-4 with dominance in the first half of the final set, but in the end Edmonton’s rise remained muted.
The power man of the match was Eichel, who scored two assists in addition to the goal.
The series continues on the night before Monday Finnish time, when the series is interrupted for Vegas.
NHL on the night before Saturday:
2nd round of the playoffs (continue with 4 wins):
Toronto–Florida and. 2–3 (0–2, 1–0, 1–0, 0–1)
Florida went on to win 4–1.
Vegas–Edmonton 4–3 (1–2, 3–0, 0–1)
Vegas leads 3-2.
The story is completed.