Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 37: Tkachuk scores game-winner with 4.9 seconds left to send Panthers to Stanley Cup Final

The Florida Panthers are off to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 27 years after a thrilling 4-3 win in Game 4 over the Carolina Hurricanes. It looked like we’d at least need overtime to save the Hurricanes season, but a late game winner from Matthew Tkachuk ended the game and the series.

If the Canes were looking to make a dramatic comeback, they didn’t exactly start off on the right foot to do so. Just 41 seconds in, Frederik Andersen made a great save on Anthony Duclair, but the Panthers created chaos in front of the net, and Duclair eventually buried the loose puck to give Florida the early 1-0 lead.

Barely a minute later, the Canes suffered a big loss to the lineup with Sam Bennett laying out Jaccob Slavin, who left the game and didn’t return. Bennett didn’t get a penalty as the head contact was incidental with Bennett’s helmet, and the Panthers actually got a power play with Jordan Martinook cross-checking Bennett.

The Panthers didn’t score on that power play, but a chance later in the period on a Sebastian Aho interference call lead to an Aaron Ekblad shot deflecting off of Brent Burns and right to Tkachuk, who corralled the rolling puck and snuck it through Andersen’s five hole to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead.

With how things went in Game 3 between the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights, it was extremely important that the Hurricanes got the next goal, and thankfully they managed to before the period even ended. Brady Skjei’s wrist shot trickled through Sergei Bobrovsky’s five hole, and in the scramble to contain it, Paul Stastny cleaned up the trash and brought the Canes back within one.

And just a few minutes into the second period, another point shot from Skjei took a funny bounce and gave Teuvo Teravainen plenty of time in front to beat Bobrovsky, and the Canes had this game all tied up at 2-2.

Just as the Canes worked to tie it, the Panthers looked to take the lead with another goal. Heavy pressure in the offensive zone forced a turnover, and a tic-tac-toe play from Ryan Lomberg, Eric Staal, and Colin White resulted in an easy tap-in for Lomberg, and Florida took a 3-2 lead in the game.

It was looking like that lead would hold, especially with the Panthers limiting the Canes chances throughout the third period, but some late pressure paid off for Carolina. Martinook set up Jesper Fast in the slot, and Fast made no mistake to score and tie the game at 3-3 for the Hurricanes.

But no matter how hard the Canes seemed to try in this series, it just didn’t matter. A late penalty from Canes captain Jordan Staal resulted in a Panthers power play, and Tkachuk showed great patience to bury the game-winner with just 4.9 seconds left in the game, and the Panthers take Game 4 by a score of 4-3, and take the series with a sweep.

The big guys showed up for the Panthers, with Tkachuk finishing the night with two goals while Aleksander Barkov had two assists, and Bobrovsky continued his strong play in this series with 36 saves on 39 shots for a .923 save percentage. Martinook and Skjei had two assists each for the Canes, but like the rest of this series, they just couldn’t generate enough offense to get the job done.

With the win, the Florida Panthers advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1996, where they were swept by the Colorado Avalanche. They will play either the Golden Knights or the Stars depending on who wins the Western Conference Final, although Vegas currently leads the series 3-0.

For the Hurricanes, they are swept in the Conference Finals for their third straight appearance, and haven’t won a game in the third round since their Stanley Cup win in 2006. They enter the offseason with $24 million in cap space, with Staal and Andersen being the biggest names to re-sign, along with plenty of depth players like Stastny, Jesse Puljujarvi, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Antti Raanta.