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Somehow, someway, Gustav Forsling’s shot with 93 seconds left in Game 6 went through Boston defenseman Parker Wotherspoon’s legs, slipped by the brick wall of goalie Jeremy Swayman and kept the Florida Panthers on their merry way.
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The Panthers went into the heart of Boston hockey for the second straight season and came out with Boston’s heart and soul with a 2-1 win Friday night in Game 6 to win a series full of angst, bile and wonderful hockey, four games to two.
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After the teams lined up to shake hands, after the Panthers took extra time respecting Swayman, Boston already was beginning to move into the background as the Panthers advance to their second-straight Eastern Conference Finals starting Wednesday at the New York Rangers.
If Boston was a series of high emotion, the next is a series even the Brooklyn-bred, Panthers owner Vinny Viola must love. His entry into hockey was as a Rangers fan in the early 1960s, back when he could only afford the worst seats to games.
Now his team threatens Madison Square Garden with the kind of play that sunk Boston. The Panthers aren’t are different from a year ago in Stanley Cup Final. They’re better. Deeper. Smarter. More disciplined. Maybe luckier, too.
“Some of it was luck,’’ Panthers coach Paul Maurice admitted because, sure, someone was going to get a slippery goal Friday night.
Forsling joined Carter Verhaeghe last year and Bill Lindsay three decades ago to be Panthers whose goal ended a Boston series.
“I can’t believe it went in,’’ Forsling said.
Even after it sunk in, it hadn’t sunk in.
“I’m not used to being the guy who scores the winning goal,” he said.
This was an odd series with five of the six games won by the road team. The Panthers won all three in Boston, reducing Boston fans to chants like, “Shoot the puck,” at their team in Game 3 and pained silence by Friday’s end.
What sports drama these games held. What anger. Matthew Tkachuk fought David Pastrnak. Sam Bennett hit Brad Marchand (and, yes, they shook hands afterward because that’s hockey). But by Game 6 the only emerged mano-a-mano battle was Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky vs. Swayman.
Who was better? Could you even pick by the end? Was the different just that lucky Forsling goal?
Bobrovsky was beaten after his defense faltered on a Pavel Zacha breakaway to open Friday’s scoring. But Bobrovsky covered up for other mistakes that gave Pastrnak a breakaway and a point-blank shot by Jake DeBrusk. Another breakaway was stopped in the opening minute of the third period. For a defense-first team, the Panthers gave up a lot of breakaways this series.
Even so, the most dramatic save of the night was made by Panthers center Aleksander Barkov. Pastrnak, the Bruins top scorer, shot into an open net on a Boston power play in the third period that Barkov went down and blocked. Barkov struggled immediately into down the tunnel from being hurt by the puck.
“He saved the game there to be honest,” Forsling said. “He made a great read. Just another amazing play by him. He seems to do it every game, to be honest.”
Swayman was the anchor to everything Boston again. He covered up for second-period discipline issues like penalties, including their fourth for too many men on the ice this series, and then an interference penalty by Charlie Coyle, who had a needless hit on Tkachuk.
Anton Lundell continued his strong postseason with the first shot by Swayman. Carter Verhaeghe came across the blue line with the puck and turned to the middle for a shot. The puck ricocheted among Boston defenders. Verhaeghe poked it to Lundell, whose shot tied the game, 1-1.
It stayed that way until Forsling did what they say to do in these games: Put a shot on net. His hit the back of the net to decide the series.
By Wednesday, Boston will be forgotten in the way always happens on playoff runs. A new challenge awaits. The last time the Panthers faced the Rangers in the playoffs was 1997, the year after the Panthers’ Year of the Rat. Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier led the Rangers to a 4-1 series rout as the Panthers started their quarter-century without a playoff series win.
That’s the needed perspective to the Panthers in back-to-back conference finals. Do you need to remember the bad days to appreciate the good ones? Maybe not not. But it sure makes this Panthers era that much sweeter.
Say good-bye to a series as brutally beautiful as hockey can be.
“This is as heavy hockey as I’ve ever seen and that goes back 30 years when they were legitimately trying to kill each other,” Maurice said. “It was something to see at ice level.”
Say hello to the Eastern Conference finals.
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