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Series highlights: Panthers advance to Stanley Cup final

 Sarah Jones
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Series highlights: Panthers advance to Stanley Cup final
Credit: Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The Stanley Cup Final is fast approaching, as the two tightly contested conference finals come to a close.

Last night, in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Florida Panthers had the chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals for the second season running by defeating the New York Rangers.

To do so, they were at home in Sunrise in front of their home fans.

Panthers win another close game and eliminate the Rangers

From the outset, we’ve become accustomed to extremely close games in this series, and yesterday was no exception.

For the fifth time in a row, the game ended with a one-goal margin between the two teams, as the Panthers prevailed 2-1 in regulation time.

It was late in the first period that Florida opened the scoring with Sam Bennett’s inbound missile.

The Panthers can say a big thank you to Rangers captain Jacob Trouba (#8) on the sequence, as he was easily beaten to speed along the boards by Evan Rodrigues.

We then had to wait until the third period before seeing another goal.

As the Panthers continued to dominate the shootout (it ended 34-24 for the Panthers), it finally went in, this time through 32-year-old veteran Vladimir Tarasenko.

With just over ten minutes left in the game, and the way things had been going since the start, it really felt like this lead would be enough for the Panthers.

And indeed, despite a final push from the Rangers in the closing minutes thanks to Artemi Panarin, the Panthers held on to win Game #6.

For the Rangers, Igor Shesterkin once again kept his team in the game as best he could, but in the end, the better team prevailed and advances to the Stanley Cup Final for the second year running.

Here’s the handshake between the two teams, as the very good friends, but enemies in this series, Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky congratulated each other.

As for the Prince of Wales Trophy awarded to the Eastern Conference champion team, well, this time, compared to last season, the Panthers didn’t touch the trophy.

Last year, they hit it and lost in the Stanley Cup Final in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Aleksander Barkov listened to his coach, Paul Maurice, this year.

Let’s see if not touching the trophy will change anything this year for the Panthers.

Anyway, well done to the Panthers, who truly represent an entire hockey team, who clearly didn’t buy their way into the Stanley Cup Final, when it’s entirely deserved.

The Panthers win the series 4-2.

It now remains to be seen whether the Panthers will face the Edmonton Oilers or the Dallas Stars.

The final kicks off on Saturday June 8 at 8 p.m.


Overtime

– Here are yesterday’s results.

– Here are yesterday’s top scorers.

(Credit: NHL.com)

– On today’s program: the Oilers can join the Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final with a home win over the Stars in Game #6.

(Credit: Google/NHL)

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