There was no lack of excitement in the deciding game of this year’s Eastern Conference Final.
The Florida Panthers arrived in Raleigh looking to eliminate the Carolina Hurricanes after failing to do so in Monday’s Game 4, and the Cats did just that.
Sure, Florida fell behind early and appeared to be wilting away as the decibels from the rabid fans inside Lenovo Center got louder and louder, but it didn’t take them long to snap back into the form that saw them win the first three games of the series by a combined score of 16-4.
Now the Panthers will get a decent chunk of time to heal and recuperate before getting back at it at the 2025 Stanley Cup Final.
Let’s get to the Game 5 takeaways:
HELL OF A CLINCHER
Say what you want about Game 5 but boy was it an entertaining game.
The building, which dubs itself the loudest arena in the NHL, was rocking for most of the night.
Florida was able to withstand a big opening haymaker by the Hurricanes, come back from a two-goal deficit and ultimately take the lead.
There was a lot to like from a Panthers perspective, and certainly some things that were not quite as pleasing, but ultimately, it’s a win that the team should be able to enjoy, at least in the short term.
“We enjoyed that one tonight,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “That was all the elements that make our sport great. They’re all over us, like all over us, and we’re serving up pizzas, and we don’t look like we should have made the playoffs, and then the next thing you know, we look pretty good, right? I think Carolina is an exceptionally well coached team, systematically and identity-wise. So, yeah, I’m going to enjoy this one.”
SPECIAL TEAMS COME UP HUGE
Entering Wednesday’s game, much of the special teams conversation was surrounding Carolina’s strong penalty killing over the past couple outings.
They killed off 10 penalties in a row between Game 3 and the first period of Game 5, but it was a power play goal by Matthew Tkachuk that got Florida rolling in what ended up being a series clinching victory.
But then the Cats’ penalty kill was called into action, and boy did they deliver.
Florida’s PK finished Game 5 a perfect 6-for-6 when down a man, including perhaps the biggest kill of the season, which came during the final minutes with the Panthers up by one.
“It’s been a core strength of our team for the last three years,” Maurice said of the penalty kill. “If you would say there’s a piece, Sergei Bobrovsky is the key piece to all of that, and then our penalty kill has probably the deciding piece in us going back to our third Final, because you have a Selkie award winner taking most of those faceoffs. We have people that are built to kill penalties. What happened to us the last two years, even going back two summers ago, but also the trade deadline, our entire focus was bringing in penalty killers, because we when they come in here, they do a great job, and then they go off and get paid a bunch of money, as they should. But Seth Jones can kill penalties. Brad Marchand was part of an elite penalty killing unit. Nico Sturm was a killer, we brought (Tomas) Nosek in this year to kill penalties. That’s big part of what we do.”
SUBTLE LINE CHANGE
After Florida fell behind 2-0 and were looking for a spark coming into the second period, Maurice made a move on his forward lines that ended up paying big dividends.
Maurice swapped left wings on his top two lines, moving Carter Verhaeghe up to the top line with Sasha Barkov and Sam Reinhart and sliding Evan Rodrigues down to the line with Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk.
Rodrigues ended up scoring the game-tying goal less than eight minutes into the second period, and then it was Verhaeghe finishing off a gorgeous play by Barkov during the final frame to put the Panthers up for good.
Leave it to Maurice to downplay his part in making the move that may have proved to be the difference in the game for Florida, explaining that it was more of a matchup thing than anything else.
“It’s not brand new for me,” Maurice said. “I didn’t come up with that. For three years during the regular season, I would switch the left winger with Verhaeghe and whoever it was, it was Nick Cousins for a while, and then we had a whole bunch of different guys that it was, and it worked. And this year it never worked, not once, but tonight, it was more of a statement of their matchup. So we understood that Aho came out against (Sam) Bennett for the most part, in the first three (games) and then into (Game) 4, it wasn’t great for us. Then it was Aho on Barkov, so that the matchup then was (Jordan) Staal on Bennett, and in which case, it’s more of a grinding line, and I needed Verhaeghe to not be on that ice with him. He could do it, but there’s no value to it. Evan Rodriguez actually killed a play early after the switch, and we almost got a chance (off of it). And then sometimes it’s for Evan too. So both of those guys flipped, but it was more their match to ours. That’s all.”
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Photo caption: May 28, 2025; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostibehere (4) shoots the puck during the second period against the Florida Panthers in game five of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Lenovo Center. (James Guillory-Imagn Images)
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