Panthers Return To Stanley Cup Final for Third Straight Season

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Florida Panthers are returning to the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight season after winning the Eastern Conference Final in five games over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Florida overcame a two-goal deficit on Wednesday night en route to a 4-3 road win in the Eastern Conference Final clincher at the Lenovo Center. They become the ninth franchise in NHL history to reach the Cup Final in at least three straight seasons.

“I think it was a long time coming,” Panthers captain and longest tenured player said of the organization’s journey to becoming an elite franchise. “There’s a lot of work put in this organization to become better and reach the level where we want to win Stanley Cups.

“We want to compete for Stanley Cups every single year.”

Carter Verhaeghe scored the game winning goal in the third period and Sergei Bobrovsky had 20 saves as the Panthers retained the Prince of Wales Trophy for a third straight year.

Sebastian Aho opened the scoring 4:39 into the game with his sixth goal of the playoffs after capitalizing on a bad neutral zone turnover from Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling, making it 1-0 with a breakaway goal.

Aho scored his second goal of the period — off another turnover by a Panthers defenseman —  with 1:06 to go in the first. Niko Mikkola coughed up the puck near his blue line straight to Aho, who beat Bobrovsky low-blocker  to put the Hurricanes up 2-0.

The Panthers trailed 2-0 going into the first intermission after arguably their worst 20 minutes of the entire postseason. Florida had zero shots on two power play attempts in the opening period and had just one shot on goal in the final 11:32 of the opening frame.

To make matters worse for the Panthers, Eetu Luostarinen’s night came to an end after the first period due to an apparent lower-body injury. Towards the end of the opening period, Luostarinen hit the boards awkwardly after missing the mark on a hit.

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice did say postgame that Luostarinen “should be fine” and that they don’t think the injury is serious.

Looking all but out of the game early in the second, the Panthers clawed themselves back into the game and stunned the home crowd in Raleigh with two unanswered goals just 30 seconds apart.

Matthew Tkachuk finally got Florida on the board with their first goal since Game 3 of the series 7:23 into the second after he tipped in Aaron Ekblad’s point-shot on the power play.

When asked about what helped turn the momentum in the game, multiple Panthers singled out their captain as the energizer.

“Aleksander Barkov, that’s what got us going,” Brad Marchand said. “[On] our power-play he made a great pinch on the wall, kept the puck in and then the guys went to work from there.”

On the following shift, the Panthers found the equalizer off of Evan Rodrigues’ first goal of the 2025 playoffs. Rodrigues and Sam Bennett linked up on a give-and-go off the rush, with Bennett sliding a pass to Rodrigues who buried it five-hole, tying the game at 2-2.

“It was a hell of a play by Benny — Chucky even before that getting it to me,” Rodrigues said of his goal. “I thought from that goal on we took over.”

Off the momentum of the back-to-back goals, Florida took the lead with 8:01 to play in the second after Brad Marchand fed a tight-angle pass through traffic and across the crease to Anton Lundell, who redirected the puck past Frederick Andersen for a 3-2 lead.

With 11:30 to play in regulation, Seth Jarvis tied the game at 3-3 with his sixth goal of the playoffs, lifting a puck over Bobrovsky’s shoulder into the top corner.

Carter Verhaeghe reclaimed the lead for Florida, putting them up 4-3 with 7:39 to go in the third after roofing his sixth goal of the playoffs underneath the bar. Aleksander Barkov setup the play after outmuscling Dmitry Orlov in the corner and hitting a wide open Verhaeghe backdoor.

Sam Bennett took a penalty with three minutes to go in regulation, giving the Hurricanes one final chance to tie the game. After Florida killed the penalty, Bennett came out of the box to chase a loose puck before putting it in the empty net, putting the Panthers up 5-3 with 54 seconds to go.

Florida’s Stanley Cup Final will be the winner of the Dallas-Edmonton series. The Oilers hold a 3-1 lead over the Stars