RALEIGH, N.C. (AP)-- Matthew Tkachuk completed a feed from Sam Reinhart at the 1:51 mark of overtime to assist the Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 on Saturday night for a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference last.
Less than 2 days after scoring the winner in a four-overtime thriller, Tkachuk came through once again, this time on the power play after a faceoff win by the Panthers. Sam Bennett sent out a pass to the left side for Reinhart, who zipped the puck across to Tkachuk for the simple finish against a sprawled-out Antti Raanta.
Tkachuk right away skated toward the door on the boards causing the Florida locker room, motioning to his colleagues that it was time to present and celebrate.
It marked Tkachuk's 3rd overtime winner in the playoffs, that includes a Game 5 roadway win in the first-round upset of
Boston following the Bruins' record-setting regular season. And just like that, Florida won on the roadway for the 8th straight time in the playoffs-- including starting 2-0 on the road in back-to-back series-- and enhanced to 6-0 in overtime in the postseason.
Aleksander Barkov included a highlight-reel goal for Florida in the 2nd duration, while Sergei Bobrovsky again bewildered Carolina with 37 stops.
Jalen Chatfield scored Carolina's only objective in the opening minutes, while Raanta finished with 24 saves.
Each group also had an objective overturned on a video-review obstacle for an unpenalized offsides while entering the zone leading up to ball games.
Florida has home-ice advantage for the next two video games, beginning Monday with Game 3 in Sunrise. The Panthers are now 2 wins far from reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the first time because 1996, which also marks their last appearance in the East last.
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 video game in NHL postseason history-- together with the longest video game in the history of each franchise.
The hours because had actually become what Panthers coach Paul Maurice called "a race to recover" with both groups paying a "huge expense." Neither practiced Friday nor had a group early morning skate Saturday, opting to utilize every offered minute of rest.
Florida stuck with its Game 1 lineup, consisting of Bobrovsky after his 60-save efficiency. The Hurricanes swapped goaltenders after Frederik Andersen's heavy workload and began Raanta, who started the very first five video games of the postseason and had gone 19-3-3 throughout the routine season.
Bobrovsky was just as sharp as in Game 1, especially against Carolina's withering start that consisted of holding Florida to one shot through the very first 13 minutes. He came up with several big stops, most especially when he made it across the crease in time to get to Teuvo Teravainen's backdoor attempt with his blocker after Martin Necas' fast feed in the second.
Carolina rode the emotion from a roaring crowd for a quick start, with Sebastian Aho firing a loose rebound back towards the crease to Chatfield-- who deflected the puck past Bobrovsky just 1:43 into the game.
Yet Florida reacted in the second with Barkov's beautiful goal. He got loose and alone with Raanta after Florida had actually won a fight along the boards and got the puck to its captain.
Barkov started to slide the puck between his legs, freezing Raanta for a possible flip towards the internet. But Barkov pulled the puck back forward and under his left skate and smoothly backhanded it into the internet at 7:43 of the 2nd to tie it at 1-1.
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