Unbelievable! Panthers force OT in last minute, stun Bruins in Game 7 for historic upset
It took until the final few minutes of regulation in Game 7 of the Florida Panthers’ first-round series with the Boston Bruins for Matthew Tkachuk to feel like his Panthers — the last team into the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, the biggest underdog of Round 1 and the foil to the record-setting Bruins — were going to lose and the thought was gone within moments.
The sold-out crowd at TD Garden was as loud as it has been at any point in the first round. Boston was a minute from surviving Florida’s furious upset bid, and then there was a hush. Brandon Montour tied the score with 59.3 seconds left in regulation. In the first 10 minutes of overtime, Carter Verhaeghe scored. The Panthers, who so many times roared back from the brink of elimination, pulled their greatest escape act yet to stun the Bruins, 4-3, in Boston and pull off one of the biggest upsets in NHL history.
“Two minutes away from being in a very sad mood right now,” said Tkachuk, instead beaming. “I guess there was maybe a tiny bit that entered my mind during the timeout before the empty net, like, ‘Oh, better score now or else it’s over.’ That was the only time I had that thought.”
Florida finished 43 points behind the Bruins in the regular season — the largest gap between postseason opponents in nearly 30 years — and was nine points out of a postseason spot after Christmas. It didn’t clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs until April 11 and then it lost three of four to start them before rallying to win the first-round series 4-3.
The Panthers spent almost half the season feeling like they were just a few losses from getting eliminated, so this series was nothing new. They were down 3-1 in the series, down by a goal in the third period of Game 6 and down with a minute left in Game 7 after blowing a 2-0 lead, and they came back to win every time. Florida won three consecutive elimination games for the first time in franchise history and will now face the Maple Leafs in Round 2, while Boston, which set regular-season records for wins and points, is done after just seven games in the Cup playoffs.
For the first time, the Panthers are in the second round of the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. This win, though, was the biggest moment All-Star center Aleksander Barkov has been a part of in his decade with the Panthers, he said — even bigger than winning the Presidents’ Trophy last year.
“Nobody in the whole world thought we were going to win this series except for the guys in that room,” Tkachuk said, “so it’s a pretty cool feeling right now.”
Montour’s game-tying goal came moments after a timeout, and Florida came out of the stoppage confident. The Panthers didn’t need to talk strategy or design a play. They knew what they were supposed to do and Montour, who also opened the scoring with a power-play goal in the first period, zipped a shot through traffic and past Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman to force overtime.
When Florida went back to the locker room for the intermission before overtime, coach Paul Maurice was certain the Panthers would win, he said. Verhaeghe, who also scored an overtime series-winning goal in Round 1 last season, scored with 11:25 left in overtime after a pileup in front of the net ended with the puck on the left wing’s stick and Florida started to celebrate in front of a stunned-silent crowd of 17,850.
“Play to win, not to lose,” Verhaeghe said.
Tkachuk and center Sam Bennett assisted on Verhaeghe’s goal, and Barkov and Verhaeghe assisted on Montour’s game-tying score. The Panthers also got a second-period goal from forward Sam Reinhart to go up 2-0 and even got an assist from star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on Montour’s opening goal.
Bobrovsky, who also beat the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs with the Blue Jackets, made 33 saves on 36 shots. Swayman, who made his first start of the postseason after Boston benched All-Star goaltender Linus Ullmark, stopped 27 of 31.
It all started with a promise, but really it started with a gamble.
Before Tkachuk guaranteed Florida would come back from 3-1 down to force a Game 7 and long before the Panthers stunned Boston in overtime, there were the unorthodox — maybe even risky — moves general manager Bill Zito orchestrated in the offseason.
The Panthers were good last year. They won the Presidents’ Trophy and a postseason series for the first time since the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs. They were young, and ready to compete for years and years to come.
Zito was not content to wait and see. Even after Florida’s best season in close to 20 years, the general manager decided to hire a new coach and make one of the biggest blockbuster trades in recent memory. The Panthers were good, but could be better.
After so much went wrong throughout the 2022-23 NHL season, Florida is vindicated. The Panthers are going to the second round in about the most dramatic fashion possible.
The team to score first won all seven games in the series and there wasn’t a single lead change until the third period of Game 6, and then everything went wild.
There were two lead changes in an eight-goal third period Friday, with players from all four of Florida’s lines scoring in the must-have period. In Game 7, the Panthers went up 2-0 in the first 22 minutes, then blew their lead in the final 33, only to score in the last minute to force overtime.
By then, Florida had been through just about everything. The Panthers slammed Verhaeghe up against the wall next to their bench while the Bruins watched in disbelief.
Florida’s players were speechless, too, and even those with something to stay weren’t ready to process everything.
The Panthers, who had failed to reach the second round of the playoffs in 26 of their first 27 seasons, were in the middle of the wildest postseason moment in decades.
“It’s hard to understand right now,” Barkov said, “and I don’t think we need to understand right now.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2023 at 9:54 PM.
