Panthers can sweep their way back to Stanley Cup Final with a win over Hurricanes on Monday night

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Brad Marchand wanted no part of the conversation.

He and the Florida Panthers lead the Carolina Hurricanes 3-0 in the Eastern Conference finals. Florida is on the brink of reaching the Stanley Cup Final; it would be the Panthers’ third straight appearance in that round and Marchand’s first time in the title round since 2019.

Talk of getting there, however, can wait. There’s another win to get first.

“You don’t think about that,” Marchand said when asked what a Cup final trip would mean. “We’re prepared to go seven (games) here and I think the biggest thing for this group is we’re really good at just focusing on what we need to do and staying in the moment and not looking ahead. You can’t start looking ahead.”

Perhaps they can’t, but others can. The Prince of Wales Trophy — given to the Eastern Conference champions — will be in Florida’s building on Monday night, when the Panthers will get their first chance at eliminating the Hurricanes and clinching yet another East title.

“We’re playing for our season,” Carolina forward Taylor Hall said. “So, there’s no point in thinking about what happened previously.”

Florida’s five-goal third-period barrage turned a tie game into a rout on Saturday night, and the Hurricanes understand the enormity of the situation. They’ve lost 15 consecutive East finals games and know that only four teams in NHL history have come back from a 3-0 series deficit.

“They’ve got to win four,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said, his way of his saying the series isn’t over yet.

The Panthers expect that Niko Mikkola and A.J. Greer, both of whom got hurt in the Game 3 win, will likely be ready for Monday. There’s no determination yet on forward Sam Reinhart, who had to sit out Game 3 after a knee injury caused by an awkward hit from Carolina’s Sebastian Aho in Game 2.

Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk let Aho know the team’s displeasure with that play in Game 3, getting a 10-minute misconduct after initiating a response of sorts in the third period and with the outcome decided.

“It’s just sticking up for teammates,” Tkachuk said. “We’re a family in there ... and I don’t think the rest of us were too thrilled with that play in Game 2. But it is what it is, it’s done with, and now the only way we can get them back is by winning the series. So, just one more.”

The series

The scores so far: 5-2, 5-0 and 6-2. Add it up, and it’s Florida 16, Carolina 4. The Hurricanes haven’t led for a single second of the three games.

It has been historically one-sided.

There have been only two series, this deep into the playoffs, where the goal differential was bigger through three games. Boston outscored St. Louis by 18 goals through the first three games of the 1972 semifinals, and Montreal outscored Chicago by 14 goals through the first three games of the 1946 semifinals.

Scoring at will

Florida has scored on 23.2% of its shots in the series, which is almost unprecedented in NHL playoff history.

Going back to the 1960 playoffs, only two teams — Chicago in 1985 and Edmonton in 1990 — shot better in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series. The Black Hawks (they still used the two-word version of their nickname then) shot 26.4% against Detroit in the division semifinals, and the Oilers shot 23.3% against Los Angeles in the division finals.

Up 3-0, down 3-0

Being down 3-0 in a series is not new to Carolina. The Hurricanes were down 3-0 to the New York Rangers last season before falling in six games, and down 3-0 to Florida in 2023 before getting swept in the East finals.

The franchise was down 3-0 in four different best-of-seven series from 1989 through 2019 as well. Of those, three ended in sweeps and the other against New Jersey went six games in 2001. The coach of that 2001 Carolina team? Paul Maurice, the current Florida coach.

Florida is up 3-0 in a series for the first time since last season’s Stanley Cup Final against Edmonton — a series that wound up going seven games.

“We’ll see what we’ve learned,” Maurice said.

The coaching matchup

Florida’s Paul Maurice is 7-0 against Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour in playoff games, all in the conference finals in 2023 and now this season.

Only Scotty Bowman has gone 8-0 in a head-to-head coaching matchup. His Montreal teams swept Roger Neilson’s Toronto teams in the 1978 and 1979 playoffs; Neilson is a former Florida coach as well.

Rodrigues waits

Going into Sunday, there were 30 players in the NHL with at least 10 points so far in the playoffs.

Florida’s Evan Rodrigues is one of them — but is the only one of the 30 without a goal. There were 191 players with at least one goal this postseason entering Sunday.

“I’m just saving them,” he said.

___

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl