The horn sounded on Wednesday night to signal a third straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, as the Florida Panthers celebrated merely by hopping over the boards and several heading over to congratulate goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
It was a subdued celebration seemingly more befitting a regular-season win for the reigning Cup champs.
“I remember a few years ago, it felt like such an accomplishment from where we were at one point,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said, adding: “It’s all business and we’ve got a bigger goal in mind.”
Photo: James Guillory-Imagn Images / USA Today
The Panthers closed out the Carolina Hurricanes in five games, with a 5-3 victory in the Eastern Conference Final, pushing ahead for good when Carter Verhaeghe broke a tie off a feed from Aleksander Barkov with 7 minutes, 39 seconds left.
Florida beat the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final for the second time in three seasons. The Panthers are to face the winner of the Western Conference Final between the Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers.
Sam Bennett added an empty-net goal with 54 seconds left by skating down a loose puck straight out of the penalty box after Florida had held up against a critical late power play for the Hurricanes.
That capped a wild night that saw the Hurricanes jump to a 2-0 lead by capitalizing on giveaways, and Florida answer with three second-period goals, only to see Carolina’s Seth Jarvis beat Bobrovsky midway through the third to tie it at three.
“That was all the elements that make our sport great,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “They’re all over us, and we’re serving up pizzas and we don’t look like we should’ve made the playoffs, and then the next thing you know we look pretty good.”
For the first time in almost 36 years, a Parisian derby will be played in French soccer’s top flight when reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain FC take on the nouveau riche Paris Football Club (PFC) today. Not one of the players involved in today’s match — PFC’s 38-year-old third-choice goalkeeper Remy Riou is almost certainly not going to be involved — was born the last time there was a Parisian derby in Ligue 1. That was on Feb. 25, 1990, when Moroccan midfielder Aziz Bouderbala scored a brace as Racing Paris 1 beat PSG 2-1 at the Parc des Princes home that
BOUNCING BACK: Antetokounmpo had just returned from an eight-game injury absence last month, leading the Milwaukee Bucks to their third win in four games Giannis Antetokounmpo threw down the game-winning dunk with 4.7 seconds remaining to lift the Milwaukee Bucks to a 122-121 victory over the Charlotte Hornets and grab a slice of NBA history on Friday. The Bucks trailed by as many as 16 on their home floor, but Antetokounmpo scored 12 of his 30 points in the final quarter to help seal the win in a frantic finish that saw five lead changes in the final 45.7 seconds. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) added 10 rebounds and five assists. It was his 158th regular-season game with at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and
Stan Wawrinka’s 40-year-old legs did not let him down over three-plus hours in his first singles match of a farewell tour yesterday. Three-time Grand Slam singles champion Wawrinka beat Arthur Rinderknech of France, who is ranked 29th to Wawrinka’s 157th, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5). The match went 3 hours, 16 minutes. Wawrinka last month announced that this year would be his last on the ATP tour. “Today was a tough battle ... it’s amazing to come here for the first time, to have so much support,” Wawrinka said yesterday. “Twenty years on tour, you kind of always play in the same place
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka yesterday got her season off to a winning start for Japan in the United Cup, after the UK’s Emma Raducanu pulled out of their singles clash with a fitness issue, while in Brisbane, Taiwan’s Latisha Chan and Wu Fang-hsien crashed out of the women’s doubles. In Perth, despite Osaka’s win, the UK took the match 2-1 with a deciding mixed doubles victory. Osaka was too strong for reserve and 276th-ranked Katie Swan, winning 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 as Raducanu watched from the sidelines. “I’m proud of how I fought,” Osaka said. “I’d never played here, it was tough.” Britain
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