By AIDAN JENSEN
[email protected]
For the third straight year, the Carolina Hurricanes are division champions.
This season’s Metropolitan Division title, however, came down to the very last game against a scrappy Florida Panthers team fighting for playoff positioning of their own.
Despite the Panthers fighting back to tie Thursday’s game with goals 2:19 apart in the third period, the Canes dug their skates into the ice and scored four more times to pull away for a 6-4 victory.
Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour made the glaring difference in Thursday’s win, calling a crucial, third-period timeout after Florida (42-32-8, 92 points) evened the score with goals from captain Aleksander Barkov and Ryan Lomberg.
After the brief break in play, the Canes looked more like the team that dominated the opening two frames.
They took advantage of a Panthers defensive miscue, retaining possession and Jack Drury blasting a wrist shot just left of the goal. After the puck dribbled around the boards, Carolina defenseman Brent Burns snapped another wrister, this time through a goalie screen for a 3-2 lead and his second goal of the night.
The Canes expanded their advantage 21 seconds later, this time thanks to a Jesper Fast tally. Carolina put a couple of slap shots on goal, then captain Jordan Staal found the puck at his stick. Staal sent a slow pass across the goalmouth to Fast, who then cashed in for his 10th tally of the season.
With time winding down in the final period, Florida pulled goalie Alex Lyon for the extra attacker. That decision appeared to work in favor of the Canes, as new acquisition Shayne Gostisbehere emerged from the penalty box, intercepted a Florida pass and scored an empty-netter for his 13th goal of the season.
Yet the Panthers tried the extra-attacker trick one more time – it nearly worked. Anthony Duclair slapped a one-timer through Frederik Andersen’s legs, cutting Florida’s deficit to 5-3. 38 seconds later, Carter Verhaege netted his Panther-leading 42nd goal to make it a one-goal game.
Florida managed to find its way back into the Canes’ zone, yet it was the good guys from Raleigh who enjoyed the last laugh.
The Panthers whiffed on a centering pass and Carolina won the race to the sprawling puck. Canes winger Seth Jarvis found a cutting Sebastian Aho up the ice, who distanced himself from the Florida defense and silenced the crowd with an empty-netter, closing the scoring.
Carolina limped into this game, having won just once in its previous four tries.
Yet after strong defense early, timely offense late, strong goaltending when they needed it and a crucial coaching decision, they launched themselves into the playoffs with a division title in their back pockets.
Playoff matchup
As a result of their victory, the Canes will be facing the New York Islanders in Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Both teams are waiting on Game One’s date – it’ll be either Monday or Tuesday in Raleigh.
Carolina took three of four matchups from the Isles (42-31-9, 93 points) during the regular-season, including a 2-1, defensive battle in Raleigh on Sunday, April 2 in which Jordan Martinook scored the game-winner on a hard wrist shot..
New York is coming off a 4-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in both teams’ regular-season finale on Wednesday.
The Isles will be a tough out – they enter the playoff matchup with two 20-goal scorers (Zach Parise (21), Anders Lee (28)) and a 30-goal scorer (Brock Nelson (36), seven players with at least 20 assists (Nelson leads the way with 39), plus two goalies with goals against averages under 3.00 (Ilya Sorokin – 31-22-7, 2.34 GAA, .924 save percentage, Semyon Varlamov – 11-9-2, 2.70 GAA, .912 save percentage).
When these Metropolitan Division rivals last met in the playoffs, the Canes swept a Robin Lehner-led Islanders team in the second round of the 2019 playoffs.
Will New York get their long-awaited revenge, or will Carolina continue its first-round success and push towards their second Stanley Cup title?
