The one motive Boqvist was within the lineup was as a result of Sam Reinhart, one among Florida’s different high stars, was not taking part in.
Most groups shedding a participant pretty much as good as Reinhart can be in hassle for a convention ultimate playoff sport. It by no means even got here near mattering for the Panthers.
Carolina’s Jap Convention Closing nightmare continues
It is simply exhausting to grasp how a single franchise can hold getting this far within the playoffs, after which hold falling flat on its face when it will get right here.
Saturday’s loss is the fifteenth consecutive Jap Convention loss for the Carolina Hurricanes franchise going again to the 2009 playoffs.
Even worse, they haven’t even had a lead up to now 5 Jap Convention Closing video games.
The dearth of goal-scoring in opposition to elite groups stays an issue for them within the playoffs, however this collection has launched a brand new drawback — they merely can’t cease the Panthers.
Carolina was one of many NHL’s greatest defensive groups through the common season, and the Panthers are simply going by them with little to no resistance.
Florida has scored a minimum of 5 targets in every of the primary three video games of the collection, together with 5 targets within the third interval of Saturday’s sport alone.
The Hurricanes have one large flaw (an absence of star energy) that just about actually lowers their ceiling. However this collection would possibly merely be extra about Florida being an absolute drive of a hockey crew.
Florida hockey is ruining the concept of parity within the NHL
If Florida can win simply one of many subsequent 4 video games, will probably be its third consecutive Stanley Cup Closing look.
They may have an opportunity to win their second Stanley Cup in a row.
That is noteworthy as a result of the concept of a back-to-back champion within the NHL was virtually fully unprecedented for about twenty years within the NHL all through the late Nineteen Nineties and a lot of the 2000s and 2010s.
If Florida can pull this off, nevertheless, they would be the third crew up to now decade to win two in a row — becoming a member of the 2016 and 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins and the 2020 and 2021 Tampa Bay Lightning — and the second crew to achieve three consecutive finals (becoming a member of the Lightning in 2020, 2021 and 2022).
It will additionally imply that the previous six Jap Convention representatives within the Stanley Cup Closing can be both Florida or Tampa Bay.
The thought of parity could be slipping away within the NHL, given all of that.
