‘Who else, right?’ Tkachuk puts Panthers in Final
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Kristen Shilton, ESPN NHL reporter
SUNRISE, Florida — Matthew Tkachuk‘s third game-winning goal of this postseason came with just 4.9 seconds left and delivered the eighth-seeded Florida Panthers to their first Stanley Cup Final in 27 years.
With their 4-3 victory Wednesday night, the Panthers completed a four-game sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals — Florida’s first playoff series sweep in franchise history. The Panthers, who scraped into the postseason as a wild card, will now make their second Cup Final appearance, and first since 1996. They await the winner of the Vegas Golden Knights–Dallas Stars series.
Regardless of who that next opponent is, Tkachuk is determined for Florida enjoy the ride.
“It’s going to be the best few weeks of our lives hopefully,” he said. “We talked about that in the room. It’s something we’re all really excited for.”
Tkachuk’s clutch score, which came on a Florida power play, was his second of the night.
“We’re lucky to have Chucky on our side,” said Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. “He’s been great all playoffs. We’re just lucky to have him.”
“Who else, right?” added Aaron Ekblad. “What he’s done (this season) is unexplainable.”
“Everyone sees what he’s doing on the ice,” said captain Aleksander Barkov. “But what he does off the ice (to prepare) is eye-opening.”
NHL senior vice president Brian Jennings was the one tasked with presenting the Prince of Wales Trophy. Some teams touch it. Some don’t. There was no hesitation on Tkachuk’s part to touch it.
“We’re not the type of team that’s going to be superstitious,” he said, referring to past tradition where players won’t hoist any trophy until the Cup itself. “We earned that thing. We did it the hard way.”
The Panthers gave themselves a chance to close out the Hurricanes after earning a 1-0 victory in Monday’s Game 3, powered by a 32-save shutout from Sergei Bobrovsky. Florida’s netminder was stellar again Wednesday with 36 saves. Frederik Andersen stopped 21 shots at the other end to give Carolina a chance at extending the series.
Florida was in control early in Game 4, taking a 1-0 lead just 41 seconds into the first period when Anthony Duclair slipped a puck past Andersen amid a mad scramble in front of Carolina’s net.
That was just the start of a nightmare stretch for the Hurricanes.
Right after Duclair scored, Panthers forward Sam Bennett laid a massive check on Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin as he played the puck behind his net. Slavin hit his head against the boards and was later ruled out with an upper-body injury. He told reporters after the game he was OK and thought the Bennett check was clean. The Hurricanes would also lose forward Stefan Noesen to an upper-body injury.
“When you look back at this, it’s tough to get far without your top players,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said of his team losing key personnel. “But I can’t ask for more out of this group than what we got.”
Tkachuk gave Florida a 2-0 advantage on the power play when Sebastian Aho went to the box for interference, the first time — in nearly 14 periods of play to that point — that a team had a two-goal lead in this series. Every bit of action came with the score tied or someone up by one in the first 272 minutes (including all the overtimes) of the series.
The Hurricanes, in need of a boost, got one when Paul Stastny pushed a puck under a sprawled-out Bobrovsky. That was the first even-strength goal a Carolina forward had scored against Florida and halted Bobrovsky’s save streak — going back to Game 2 — at 72.
Florida carried a 2-1 lead into the second period, but Carolina didn’t waste time evening the score when Teuvo Teravainen tallied his first playoff goal minutes into the middle frame.
The Panthers took the lead back with a goal from Ryan Lomberg off a tic-tac-toe play from fourth-line teammates Marc Staal and Colin White. Florida held a 3-2 advantage in the third period and defended it against a desperate Carolina team trying to keep its season alive.
Searching for the equalizer, Carolina had a critical power-play opportunity midway through the third that turned up four shots on Bobrovsky but no goal. It wasn’t until late in the third period, with just under 4 minutes to play, that Jesper Fast solved Bobrovsky again with a quick strike from in front to tie the score at 3.
A late tripping call on Carolina captain Jordan Staal gave Florida a power-play chance with 57 seconds remaining in regulation. Tkachuk beat Andersen with 4.9 seconds on the clock. Brind’Amour challenged the play over goaltender interference, but Tkachuk’s goal stood to punch Florida’s ticket to the Cup Final.
It was a tough pill for Brind’Amour and his team to swallow, seeing their promising 113-point regular season end with such a thud.
“Did we deserve better?” Brind’Amour wondered after the loss. “I think so. That’s the unfortunate part of this. (Everyone) will look back and say you got swept. That’s not what happened. I watched the game. I’m there. We’re in the game. It could have been four games the other way.”
Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.
Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.
The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.
Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.
Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.
Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.
Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.
Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.
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Ryan S. Clark
Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.
Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.
There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.
Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.
Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.
Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.
For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.
He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.
Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.
Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.
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Ryan S. Clark
Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.
With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.
Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.
Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.
Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.
The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.
Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.
Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.
PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.
TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.
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