SUNRISE — By the time Brad Marchand came crashing down the left side and turned Anton Lundell’s pass into the sixth goal of the night, the Florida Panthers already had broken Carolina again, already turned a tight game into a celebration for the third straight time in the Eastern Conference Final.
They need one more game now. Just one. Maybe Game 4 Monday night in Sunrise closes out this series even if they weren’t even looking that far ahead after their 6-2 win in Game 3.
“Is it Saturday?” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.
It’s the time of the postseason the days lose names, the nights blend together.
“It’s going to be a good Sunday,’’ he said. “We’ll have a good Sunday now.”
Monday will come soon enough, he was saying. And what a moment Monday offers. The Panther sit on the edge of hockey greatness now, the Stanley Cup Final beckoning them for a third straight year, the kind of run that would offer a chance to repeat as champs and put up with the best teams in South Florida history.
The evidence of who they are, of what they keep delivering is left behind them in another spring’s wake.
Tampa Bay, gone.
Toronto, gone.
Carolina is going, going …
No one needs to tell the Panthers the work isn’t done, that they’ve not advanced to the championship round just yet. They’ve seen everything you could see on ice over the past three years. They’ve won and lost in the final.
They’ve been down 3-1 in the opening round — and won in seven games. They’ve been up 3-0 in the final — and won in seven games.
“We’ve learned, I hope, and we’re going to find out, if we’ve learned,’’ Maurice said. “We get up three (games) in Toronto two years ago and wanted it so bad we tried to win the game on every play. You saw it last year, 8-1 (loss to Edmonton).
“They have the desperation advantage. You have potentially the desire advantage — the achievement idea that you can move on. Both teams will fight that. That will be on display in the game. Can we control the desire emotion and play the game? Can they control the desperation and play the game?
“So, the common denominator is it’s you’ve got to play the game. It’s just hockey. Just play the game. But neither team is going to feel that coming to the game.”
If the Panthers needed a lesson on why to close out this series as quickly as possible, there it was with Niko Mikkola going off the ice in the third period with an injury after two goals. The Panthers already were without star forward Sam Reinhart after a nasty Game 2 hit.
“We think he’s going to be OK,’’ Maurice said of Mikkola.
You need a team, a full roster, to keep winning this time of year. It was Jesper Boqvist who made the special play for the Panthers in Game 3. He’d been on the bench the first two games. He had one goal all playoffs.
But the formula to winning in the playoffs involves getting goals from all across the lineup and here came Boqvist at full speed into the Carolina zone with the kind of special moment that changes nights. He put a move that lost Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov, then slipped the puck past goalie Pyotor Kochetov.
“That’s what I have to do, be ready when I get the call,’’ Boqvist said. “It’s not easy, but it’s easy.”
That changed the night. Mikkola scored his second goal and Aleksander Barkov scored less than a minute later. Barkov added another. And then Marchand’s made it 6-1.
“You don’t expect that,’’ Marchand said of the five third-period goals. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything about next game. We’ve got to come in and prepare the same way. It’s always the toughest one to get so we’ve got to bring our best.
“We haven’t achieved anything yet. Until you win everything, you’ve accomplished nothing.”
They’re one game from the final. One night from a chance to repeat as champs.
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