Florida Atlantic's QB battle remains close

Philadelphia’s win over New York ends hope for Panthers.

After a sputter

SUNRISE — ing start, the Florida Panthers staged an impressive second-half turnaround to their season, only to have their playoff hopes extinguished Saturday afternoon when the Philadelphia Flyers shut out the New York Rangers 5-0, offifficially eliminating the Panthers from postseason contention.

It was the fififth time in the past six seasons the Panthers have missed the playoffffffffffffs. Florida has reached the playoffffffffffffs just twice in the past 17 seasons, losing in the conference quarterfifinals to New Jersey following the 201112 season and falling to the Islanders in the fifirst round two years ago. The Panthers have not won a playoffff series in 22 years.

Following Saturday’s win against Buffffffffffffalo, the Panthers wrap up their season with a game tonight in Boston.

After opening the season 4-8-2 in Bob Boughner’s fifirst season as coach, the Panthers reached the All-Star break 12 points out of playoffff contention.

But, spurred by the outstanding play of 22-year-old center Aleksander Barkov, the Panthers put together a 15-3-1 stretch that left them just a point out of the playoffffffffffffs.

The Panthers, however, couldn’t sustain their hot play and failed to catch Philadelphia, which needed just one point Saturday to lock up the fifinal playoffff spot.

“I think that we’ve proven that we can play with the best teams,” Boughner told the Sun-Sentinel on Saturday morning before his team (43- 30-8, 94 points after Saturday night’s game) was eliminated. “I expect that next year, when we come back, that we’ll hit the ground running and we’ll have a good start and won’t be in the situation that we’re in now. It is what it is.”

The Flyers (42-26-14, 98 points) are returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, and will be vying for their third Stanley Cup. The club won back-to-back

titles in 1973-74 and 1974-75. “We have to turn the page and get excited again,” said Philadelphia captain Claude

Giroux, who earned his fifirst regular-season hat trick.

Giroux said a key to his performance in such a crucial game was keeping his emotions in check.

“When you wake up, you try to be not jacked up,” he said. “You learn while you go through seasons. You don’t want to try to do too much.”