No excuses: The Florida Panthers mean business during storybook playoff run

The Florida Panthers’ motto is all about “living in the moment.”

Sergei Bobrovsky repeated that phrase over and over again just minutes after the Panthers closed out their second-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was calm, cool and collected. Just like he was all series long. Just like the team was all series long. And that’s why the Panthers are staring down the opportunity of a lifetime in the Eastern Conference Final, defying all expectations.

The Panthers were the second team to advance to the third round, joining their future opponents, the Carolina Hurricanes. They knocked off the team with the best record in NHL history. They then knocked off the fourth-best team coming off a major series win of their own.

Now the 17th-ranked Panthers have a shot to win it all against the second-best team in the league.

That’s the beauty of the playoffs. Regular-season stats don’t matter. Florida barely even qualified for the postseason, and now many experts are picking the Panthers to go to the Final or at least give the Hurricanes a big fight. In a sense, the Panthers are just happy to still be here, but they know they’ve got as good of a chance as the Hurricanes to play for the Cup. After coming up short in the playoffs on the heels of winning the Presidents’ Trophy a year ago, they’re taking everything in stride.

“There’s so many big moments that have happened since January where it could’ve been the end for us,” said Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk. “It could’ve been a game that we just couldn’t come back from. We made the playoffs by one point. It’s crazy to think about.”

One of those big moments, ironically, came against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Florida’s victory on March 29 helped spark the start of a six-game winning streak that eventually ended with an overtime loss against the Leafs on April 10. That helped secure a playoff spot.

“You get to watch a bunch of guys that you care about a lot and enjoy the hell out of it,” Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said after Game 5. “Walking into the room after, there’s pure joy in there.”

You could hear the excitement down the hall from the Panthers change room on Friday as “Live is Life” by Opus blared through the speakers. The buses didn’t leave for nearly an hour after the game, and the players were soaking every second of it in. They know how difficult it is to win this deep in the playoffs – especially after last season.

“I’m the furthest thing from an excuse guy, and our team doesn’t make those at all,” Tkachuk said. “But we didn’t have a full lineup, and we still don’t with (Patric Hornqvist and Ryan Lomberg) being out. We’ve dealt with a lot of stuff this year. We didn’t have Anton Lundell, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett all in the lineup at the same time until Game 2 of the playoffs. We kind of got hit with that a lot in different spurts but always believed in our group.”

The Panthers will start the series on the road, which might be a good thing. Six of their eight wins have come in enemy territory, the best of any team in the playoffs right now. The Hurricanes have a 5-1 record at PNC Arena, though, so someone’s hot streak is about to fall.

The Hurricanes won the season series 2-1, with both teams nabbing shutouts. Based on the standings alone, which saw the Hurricanes finish with 21 more points, it’s easy to discount Florida. But, clearly, discounting them is the absolute wrong thing to do. Even at Daily Faceoff, the consensus has the Panthers making the Final in our staff picks.

“We just go out and play hockey,” said forward Carter Verhaeghe. “The media will talk and say we’re underdogs or whatever. For us, we just love playing hockey, love playing for each other and love playing for the Florida Panthers.”

So, you’ve got a team in Carolina that most expect to go the distance right now, and you’ve got another team that has continued to fight off the best teams in the conference. It’s quite the matchup between two teams with different styles and different pathways to the same destination. It all gets started Thursday evening to kick off the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. All it takes is four more wins to advance, and the Panthers are ready for the challenge.

It’s the second time in franchise history that the Panthers qualified for the conference final, but they won’t be happy with just getting here. They’ve made that very clear. The team believes in itself, and the players are not worried about what anyone else thinks.

Disregard them at your own peril.