Dave Hyde: 'Disjointed' and 'slow' Panthers aim to close out Carolina in Game 5

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun Sentinel on May 27, 2025

Published in Hockey

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SUNRISE, Fla. — There was Matthew Tkachuk coming back from two months off with two goals in Game 1 against Tampa Bay in a script too good to believe. There was Brad Marchand scoring in overtime in Game 3 against Toronto to avoid a 3-0 hole, and the Game 7 that sent Toronto to the coldest of summers.

There were the three thrilling games for the Florida Panthers against the Carolina Hurricanes in this Eastern Conference final, too, so full of drama and nastiness and easy wins to take a commanding 3-0 lead.

Game 4 Monday night won’t go down as something to remember these playoffs. Maybe Game 5 in Raleigh, N.C., will. Maybe their speed and hunger returns to normal. Maybe this becomes the game they close out Carolina, advance to a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final and get some rest and much-needed recovery for who’s next.

“We’ve played some really good hockey, so we know we have it in us,” Panthers center Aleksander Barkov said. “We just didn’t have it (Monday). It’s our job to find it the next game.”

That’s all Monday’s lackluster game really meant. The Panthers still have a 3-1 grip on the series, still need just one more game to advance and still know they have another level to their game. Carolina knows it, too.

“We know they’re not going away,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “This isn’t a blip on the radar for them. We have to keep the hammer down and give ourselves a chance next game.”

The Panthers concern isn’t so much this series as dealing with some key injuries. Forward Sam Reinhart and defenseman Niko MIkkola are front-line players who were out Monday night. Reinhart has been out since taking a Game 2 hit on the knee from Carolina’s Sebastian Aho and it’s easy to see how he’s missed.

The Panthers power play is 0 for 8 the past two games.

“Our power play is slightly disjointed,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “When you lose Sam Reinhart, he’s a big piece of that.”

Sometimes, though, a night just comes down to the better game is on the other side. Monday was one of the rare times it’s happened to the Panthers these playoffs. Maurice went through the three series of these playoffs, remembering a bad Game 3 against Tampa Bay and a similar one in Game 6 against Toronto.

That’s all he came up with as far as ones he’d throw away. So, Monday makes three such games in three series. Maurice didn’t even need to pull out actor and comedian Will Ferrell’s “Panic!” line as he has in the past. No one was panicking after one loss.

“Credit to them,” Maurice said of Carolina. “I wasn’t nearly down on (Carolina) as you’d find over the last three games, and I’m not down on my team tonight.”

Carolina played desperate in the manner they hadn’t this series and teams possibly down to their final game often do. It had the energy, the speed, the extra ounce of effort to tilt the ice their way much of the night.

When Carolina’s Logan Stankoven walked in from the wing and shot a dart by Sergei Bobrovsky midway through the second period it wasn’t a surprise as much as overdue. Carolina had some good chances to that point and Bobrovsky had stopped them.

Through two periods, Carolina had 23 shots to the Panthers’ sparse 12. You expected Panthers fans to take a chant from the playbook of Carolina fans in Game 2: “Shoot the puck.” Carolina had shuffled its goalies again, too, putting Frederik Andersen back in the net after replacing him for Game 3.

Carolina added two empty-net goals to make the score worse than the margin of play.

“We got one, and we’ll go from there,” Stankoven said. “Day by day. You can’t look too far ahead. We’ve got a long way to go.”

They go back to Carolina for Game 5.

“It’s just another opportunity to get back to our game, which is great, because that wasn’t our style of game tonight,” Panthers center Sam Bennett said. “We were real slow. I’m sure we’re going to come out a lot better.”

This Panthers closed out Tampa Bay and Toronto on the road. Maybe they do so in Carolina on Wednesday night.

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