in! The Florida Panthers are writing a fairytale that won’t be forgotten

will show the NHL meeting between Dallas and Seattle on the night between Saturday and Sunday. Dallas can secure a spot in the conference finals as they lead the series 3-2. The broadcast on TV2 and Areena starts at 2:05 a.m.

Florida Panthers 2023 will be remembered for a long time. We have a fairy tale at hand, the likes of which has not been seen in the NHL for a very long time. The team that operated below its level in the regular season has beaten not only one, but two really tough teams in the playoffs.

In the regular season, Boston forged new records in NHL history in both wins and points, and Toronto also seemed to be genuinely ready to capture the holy grail of hockey this spring.

What else.

With Boston, Florida had to wrestle seven games, but it quickly oxidized Toronto in five games.

It’s hard to find a story like this in the modern NHL. St. Louis still struggled at the turn of the year in 2019, but managed to finish third in its division by spring. And it didn’t encounter such big factors on its way to the championship.

Spring 2012 Los Angeles is getting close. It came over the playoff line in the last few meters and immediately knocked off Vancouver, who won the regular season, and third-placed St. Louis. It needed just nine matches for two big scalps.

Still, one should not let the truth be obscured: Florida is a very high-quality team in many places, as were the 2012 Kings and 2019 Blueskin. And let’s not forget that Florida rolled to an impressive regular season victory a year ago.

The foundations for the rise seen now have already been laid in the past – few believed, however, that the results would blossom after a difficult regular season against such opponents.

Bobrovsky and Barkov

Margins in the NHL playoffs are non-existent to such an extent that the condition of the day, team unity and balance often play a greater role than material advantage. Toronto had a little more top end skill on the offensive end, but didn’t have the balance or goaltending that Florida did.

The fact that the team’s best scorer in the Toronto series was a defenseman says something about Florida’s balance this season Aaron Ekblad with five (1+4) points.

A professional golfer just a couple of months ago Brooks Koepka waved an orange traffic cone at Ekblad at the Panthers’ home game and roared: “You’re a fucking traffic cone!”

That’s how quickly the world in the NHL sometimes changes. The much-hyped, who scored 109 power points in the regular season Matthew Tkachuk didn’t have to make a single hit in the Toronto series. This speaks volumes for the depth of Florida.

One player still rises above the rest: the much-maligned Russian goalkeeper who enjoys an annual salary of ten million Sergei Bobrovsky started the playoffs as a second keeper, but has been a completely irreplaceable player for his team after reaching the goal. According to Evolving Hockey’s statistics, Bobrovski saved nine goals more than expected in the series.

The reading is shockingly hard.

It must also be pointed out Alexander Barkov.

The Finnish center already got the opponent’s top players under control in the Boston series, but now the clinic rose to a whole new level. Superstars Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner didn’t score a single goal in the series with Barkov’s 5-on-5 shift. Barkov even played the goalscoring statistics to a plus against the stars.

Barkov still doesn’t shine as a whole at his best level, but overshadowing the star player in the way we saw it was extremely important for the team in terms of the end result.

The only question left is: who will stop this Florida?

An incredible Finnish spring is underway

The Stanley Cup has toured Finland effectively over the past decade. After 2010, before last spring’s Colorado celebration, the Finns had won the trophy literally by playing only Antti Niemi, Kimmo Timonen, Teuvo Teräväinen and Olli Määttä.

Now we have something at hand that we have never seen before.

Next up is Carolina with four Finnish players and Florida with three Finnish players, who will face each other in the finals of the Eastern Conference. In the West, Dallas with five Finnish players is one win away from the conference finals against Seattle with one Finnish player.

On top of everything Roope Hintz can be found in the second place on the playoff goal exchange and third place on the point exchange.

There are quite a few domestic hockey fireworks that Aleksander Barkov, Sebastian Aho and Roope Hintz as their teams’ number one center have led their team this far in the world’s toughest ice hockey league. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that two of the three will meet in the Stanley Cup Finals in June.

In that case, the rings would be coming to Finland anyway through the wholesale trade.

will show the NHL meeting between Dallas and Seattle on the night between Saturday and Sunday. Dallas can secure a spot in the conference finals as they lead the series 3-2. The broadcast on TV2 and Areena starts at 2:05 a.m.

In the most recent episode of Ika änär, we talked about, among other things, the meltdown of Toronto, the playful flow from Europe and the sparkling Finns! You can find all episodes of Ika änäri on Areena at this link.