The Florida Panthers knocked off the Carolina Hurricanes for the fourth time and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Florida players also broke one of the NHL’s superstitious customs and touched the conference winner’s trophy.
The Florida Panthers have made the biggest surprise of the NHL spring and advanced to the Stanley Cup finals.
The Florida team defeated the Carolina Hurricanes for the fourth time in the Eastern Conference finals and advanced to the NHL finals with a 4–0 victory.
The Panthers took the decisive fourth game Matthew Tkachuk on the finish line. Tkachuk, who became a big hero in the series, shot a 4-3 shot just five seconds before the end of the fight. The winning goal was already the fourth of its kind for the Canadian in this spring’s playoffs.
During its club history, Florida has only played in the Stanley Cup finals once before, in the spring of 1996. That was when the Colorado Avalanche took the championship from under its nose.
Now the Panthers could finally repeat the trick. The big responsibility for this was carried by Tkachuk, who scored the winning goal, who arrived in Florida at the beginning of this season in a big trade from the Calgary Flames.
Panthers fans on social media are now praising that act of the club management as “the trade of all time”.
Tkachuk, who was the core piece of that trade, had his emotions on the surface after the decisive fourth game. For the winning goal, he shared praise with his chain mate, the captain To Aleksander Barkov. Barkov is the first Finnish captain whose team plays in the Stanely Cup finals.
– I knew there wasn’t much time and I just tried to get a shot towards the goal. “Barky” played good puck and pass for me, he described the Canadian In a Sportsnet TV interviewbefore having to swallow his words and emotions as the Florida crowd cheered.
– Now listen to these people, this is incredible. I’m so happy and grateful to be here and to score that goal in front of these fans. This feels incredible.
The Panthers also boldly set out to break NHL taboos. Often times, teams that win either conference do not touch the conference winner’s trophy, as it is believed to bring bad luck for the Stanley Cup Finals. The Stanley Cup is considered the ultimate trophy that can be touched.
Florida’s Finnish captain Barkov, on the other hand, happily lifted the trophy in his arms and carried the Prince of Wales Trophy into the locker room.
– We are not the kind of team that clings to something superstitious. We have earned that trophy and we did it by overcoming the challenges, Tkachuk justified breaking the taboos The Athletic’s reporter According to Michael Russo.
A long tradition is changing
Not touching the trophy has been a relatively long tradition in the NHL. However, the superstitious custom that has developed since the 1990s has been changing in recent years.
The teams playing in the state of Florida have been breaking it. The players of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who played in the final games of the NHL in three previous seasons, claimed the trophy every season. Tampa Bay celebrated twice with the Stanley Cup after the “bad luck act”.
Indeed, five of the last seven Eastern Conference winning teams have decided to break the old tradition of immunity.
In the end, respecting the old superstitious way has also produced bad results for the teams of the Eastern Conference in recent years.
The Boston Bruins, who won the division championship in the spring of 2011, are the most recent Eastern Conference team to miss the Prince of Wales Trophy and then win the Stanley Cup. The five most recent superstitious teams have lost the NHL finals.
Florida will face either the Vegas Golden Knights or the Dallas Stars in the NHL finals.