The Florida Panthers were able to take a commanding 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday after a dominant 5-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Here are some key takeaways from their win as they are now just two wins away from a third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
This was clinical precision by the Panthers
The Florida Panthers sent a message in their Game 1 win.
They expanded on it in Game 2.
Let’s keep one thing in mind here: The Carolina Hurricanes are an outstanding hockey team, and they have been an outstanding hockey team for several years. They consistently win a playoff series or two every year, they can compete with anybody and they do pretty much everything well. This is no pushover hockey team. And Florida is absolutely dominating them. Crushing them. They are making it look easy.
All of that is a testament to just how great this Panthers team is — and how much better it has been than everybody else in the NHL the past three years.
Not only did they score five goals against one of the NHL’s best defensive teams, but they limited the league’s best volume-shooting team to a season-low 17 shots on goal. It is only the fourth time all year (82 regular season games and 12 playoff games) that Carolina failed to register at least 20 shots on goal in a game.
Their stars shined offensively as Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe all recorded three points, Matthew Tkachuk had three and starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky recorded his third shutout of the playoffs.
It’s still hard to imagine somebody beating this team four times in a seven-game stretch.
Now Carolina has to beat them four times in a five-game stretch. That just seems like an impossibly tall task.
Panthers continue to be road warriors
By taking the first two games of the series on the road, the Panthers continued their road dominance and improved to 7-2 away from south Florida this season.
They have also won their past four road games in rather decisive fashion, outscoring Toronto and Carolina by a 22-4 margin.
