*Photo from the San Diego Union Tribune*
Florida leads series 2-0
No, this game did not go to 4 overtimes like game one did. Aleksander Barkov scored, Matthew Tkachuk added the winner, and the Florida Panthers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 in OT on Saturday in Raleigh.
After a 4 overtime epic in game one, this one only took the first two minutes of one overtime to decide. In the end, it was the Panthers on top once again as they took a 2-0 series lead with two straight wins on the road against the Metropolitan Division winning Hurricanes.
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said after the game that "Neither team cheats the game because it's tight. The two teams are pretty disciplined in their game, it stays tight. They're both comfortable in that game. It is that tight. We've been doing this for a couple months."
The only goal of the first period came from Jalen Chatfield. He scored his first career playoff goal, giving the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead with Stefan Noesen and Sebastian Aho assisting. Barkov answered back in the second period, tying the score 1-1 with a slick backhand goal, assisted by Josh Mahura on the play that has garnered headlines across the league.
After that, things went scoreless through the rest of the second and the entire 3rd period, leading to overtime once again. This time, Tkachuk wanted to end things quickly. Just 1:51 into overtime, Tkachuk scored his 7th goal of the playoffs, this coming on a power play with assists from Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett to give the Panthers the win.
Tkachuk said of his goal that "Let's get out of here, it's been a lot of hockey the last two games. It's just great to end it early. Great pass to start by Bennett and a great pass by Reinhart to make it really, really easy for me, so it was awesome."
After the marathon game one, the Panthers put Sergei Bobrovsky back in net for game two, and he once again had a big game. Bobrovsky stopped all but one of the 38 shots the Hurricanes had, good for a stellar .974 save percentage in the win.
Starting in net for the Hurricanes was Antti Raanta, giving Frederik Andersen a rest after the first game. Raanta made 24 saves out of the 26 shots on goal the Panthers sent at him, giving him a .923 save percentage on the night.
Carolina forward Jordan Martinook said of losing two straight that "Obviously, it stings. We wanted to get the one tonight to split it going back to Florida, but now our mindset is we've got to go get that next one and we'll go from there. But you get to overtime and it's a toss-up and they get the power play and get their goal tonight. So, we've got to have a mindset to get that next game."
Up next, the series shifts down to Florida for games 3 and 4, with game 3 set for Monday night. The Panthers will look to take a commanding 3-0 series lead, while the Hurricanes look to get back in the series with a win on the road.
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