Tkachuk scores another OT winner, lifting Panthers to 2-0 series lead
RALEIGH, N.C. >> Matthew Tkachuk finished a feed from Sam Reinhart at the 1:51 mark of overtime to help the Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 on Saturday night for a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference final.
Less than two days after scoring the winner in a four-overtime thriller, Tkachuk came through again, this time on the power play after a faceoff win by the Panthers. Sam Bennett sent a pass to the left side for Reinhart, who zipped the puck across to Tkachuk for the easy finish against a sprawled-out Antti Raanta.
Tkachuk immediately skated toward the door on the boards leading to the Florida locker room, motioning to his teammates that it was time to roll out and celebrate.
It marked Tkachuk's third overtime winner in the playoffs, which includes a Game 5 road win in the first-round upset of Boston following the Bruins' record-setting regular season. And just like that, Florida won on the road for the eighth straight time in the playoffs — including starting 2-0 on the road in backto-back series — and improved to 6-0 in overtime in the postseason.
Aleksander Barkov added a highlight-reel goal for Florida in the second period, while Sergei Bobrovsky again befuddled Carolina with 37 stops.
Jalen Chatfield scored Carolina's lone goal in the opening minutes, while Raanta finished with 24 saves.
Each team also had a goal overturned on a videoreview challenge for an unpenalized offsides while entering the zone leading up to the scores.
Florida has home-ice advantage for the next two games, starting Monday with Game 3 in Sunrise. The Panthers are now two wins away from reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1996, which also marks their last appearance in the East final.
The Panthers took the series opener in epic fashion, beating the Hurricanes on Tkachuk's goal with 12.7 seconds left in the fourth OT early Friday to end the sixth-longest game in NHL postseason history — along with the longest game in the history of each franchise.
The hours since had become what Panthers coach Paul Maurice called “a race to recover” with both teams paying a “huge cost.” Neither practiced Friday nor had a team morning skate Saturday, opting to utilize every available moment of rest.
Florida stuck with its Game 1 lineup, including Bobrovsky after his 60save performance. But the Hurricanes swapped goaltenders after Frederik Andersen's heavy workload and started Raanta, who started the first five games of the postseason and had gone 19-3-3 during the regular season.
Bobrovsky was just as sharp as in Game 1, particularly against Carolina's withering start that included holding Florida to one shot through the first 13 minutes.