In Sunrise, Matthew Tkachuk scored his second goal of the game with 4.9 seconds left in regulation to give the Panthers a 4-3 lead, and win, over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final.
“Who else, right?” the Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad said. “Who else?”
The win completed an improbable sweet of the Canes for the Panthers.
“That’s the unfortunate part of this is you’re going to look back and everyone’s going to say, ‘You got swept,'” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “That’s not what happened. I watched the game. I’m there. We’re in the game. We didn’t lose four games. We got beat. We were right there, and this could have gone the other way and this could have been four games the other way.”
Tkachuk took a rebound of a previous shot and looped above the crease and snapped home the winner, off the power play.
“It was such an unusual game,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “It was the opposite of the first [three]. The game was a bit loose and hectic a little bit at times. There was offense to be had that we hadn’t seen before and then there was tension on our end that we hadn’t seen before. But at that number on the clock, we’re pretty sure it’s over. A lot of tension on the call waiting for it to come in, and then pretty good release.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 36 saves in the Panthers win.
The Panthers jumped out to a 2-0 lead on first period goals from Anthony Duclair and Tkachuk.
Duclair scored with just 14 seconds of new ice used in the game.
“It’s a huge confidence booster when you’re up ahead, especially early on,” Duclair said. “And then ‘Chucky’ put one in there right after, and obviously we weren’t expecting Carolina to fold there. We’re expecting them to come hard and they came right to the end. So, credit to them. But again, our whole team stepped up tonight.”
Tkachuk scored off the power play in the first at 10:23 for the 2-0 advantage.
“There’s 100 great stories in that room, but that fourth line is clearly one of them,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “So, it’s nice that they get that one obvious piece to the win, not just grinding a few pucks out and blocking a few shots, they get to enjoy the arms up on the ice.”
Paul Stastny got the Hurricanes on the board at 13:03 to trim the deficit to 2-1.
“I don’t want to use the narrative of lose this guy, lose that guy, lose this guy, but in the grand scheme of things, we were missing a ton of pieces,” Carolina’s Jordan Martinook said. “… That’s no excuse because we’re right there. They swept us, but two overtime games (3-2 loss in four overtimes in Game 1, 2-1 loss in overtime in Game 2), they score four seconds left and [Game 3 was] one goal when we were dominating. I don’t know what I feel right now. It doesn’t feel real.”
Carolina got even early in the middle frame when Teuvo Teravainen scored at 2:51 for a 2-2 tie.
“When you look back at this, for us, it’s going to be, in general, it’s tough to get this far without your top players,” Brind’Amour said. “The fact that we did that without two of the top guys that we missed … to come in and actually outchance a team for four games without those guys and then lose Slavin and still continue to forge ahead, that’s why I said, I’m proud of this group.
“It’s tough and we’re not playing (anymore), but I can’t ask for a better group or more out of what we got.”
The Panthers reclaimed the lead at 9:49 of the second with his first of the post season and a 3-2 advantage headed to the third.
“We were right there,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It didn’t feel like it was a 4-0 sweep series.”
Carolina, who chased the game all night, in fact, all series, got even again with a strike by Jesper Fast t at 3:22 of the third.
“They scored with three minutes left, you’d think that, ‘Uh-oh, here we go.’ Like, what’s going to happen?” Tkachuk said. “But it’s the opposite. It’s just so fun being at the rink right now. We’ve got a few weeks left of this. We talked about it in the room, it’s going to be the best few weeks of our lives, hopefully. It’s something that we’re all really excited for.”
The Hurricanes will have some soul searching to do after finishing with the Metropolitan Division title and the hopes of reaching a Stanley Cup Championship with this roster.
Use CodePHN15 For when you are eliminated from the playoffs, kick back, and relax.
Frederik Andersen made 20 saves in the series-ending loss.
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