Bobrovsky ‘a luxury’ the Panthers don’t take for granted as they return to Stanley Cup Finals

After posing for photographs with the Prince of Wales Trophy and basking in another round of cheers from a sellout crowd in Sunrise after their Eastern Conference final-clinching 2-1 win against the New York Rangers, the Florida Panthers finally headed back to their dressing room. For a moment, Sergei Bobrovsky skated alone back to his net to grab his water bottle before he headed back to the locker room to start getting ready for yet another Stanley Cup Finals.

The crowd of 19,865 inside Amerant Bank Arena started to chant again.

“Bobby! Bobby!”

Bobrovsky held his hand to his mouth and blew a kiss to his crowd.

“They were great,” the All-Star goaltender said.

OK, really, the kiss was for his wife, Bobrovsky later revealed—not that it mattered to the Panthers fans who waited 30 years for a team like this and have now spent five of those riding the ups and downs of Bobrovsky’s tenure in South Florida.

Right now, the Bobrovsky experience is at an all-time high.

“It’s remarkable,” said center Sam Bennett, who scored the go-ahead goal in the first period. “He’s been an absolute stud all year and especially in the biggest games. That seems to be when he’s playing his best hockey, which is just incredible. To have a goalie back there behind us just gives us that much more confidence.”

In the Eastern Conference final, the Panthers needed every ounce of Bobrovsky’s excellence. All six games were one-goal games in the third period and 4 of 6 were decided by one goal, including the series-clinching victory Saturday. Bobrovsky, 35, stopped 23 of 24 shots, including the first 22 he faced before Rangers forward Artemi Panarin scored with 1:40 left after New York pulled All-Star goaltender Igor Shesterkin for an extra skater to desperately try to erase Florida’s 2-0 lead.

Bobrovsky stopped one last shot after conceding to Panarin and finished off a dominant defensive series the Panthers. The Rangers, who averaged 3.39 goals per game in the regular season and 3.5 in the first two rounds of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, scored just 12 goals in six games in the East final, with Bobrovsky posting a .937 save percentage and 1.34 goals against average.

Near the end of his best season since he arrived in Florida, Bobrovsky played perhaps his best postseason series since he led the Blue Jackets’ stunning upset of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs.

“It is a luxury, for sure,” star center Aleksander Barkov said. “He’s the hardest working guy I’ve ever seen. You just know that when the guy works that hard, he’s also super calm every single day. Practice — he’s having fun. Morning skate — he’s having fun. Warm-ups, all that kind of stuff — you see him being in the zone. You just know he’s going to be on top of his game and he’s been unbelievable.

“You said he’s 35. It’s really hard to believe. He’s been amazing and it’s fun to watch him from this close.”

At times, the conference final became a goaltending duel, with Shesterkin essentially the only reason New York was able to push the series to six games and Bobrovsky matching nearly every one of the Shesterkin’s spectacular saves with a crucial stop of his own.

In the series finale, all Bobrovsky needed was four high-danger saves to finish off the Rangers. His defense certainly helped him — the Rangers only had three shots in the third period before they yanked Shesterkin for the extra attacker — and yet he also makes what they do possible. Despite all New York’s skill and speed, Florida didn’t hang back on defense, but instead attacked the Rangers near the blue line, keeping New York from ever even being able to set up on offense. With Bobrovsky behind them, the Panthers can afford to gamble some.

After three rocky seasons to start his time in Florida, Bobrovsky has been at the middle of back-to-back runs to the Cup Final and yet nothing seems to be different, especially once the truth behind those kisses is revealed.

The way Bobrovsky spoke after the win to get the Panthers back to the Final sounded the same as he would against a regular-season win in January.

“It definitely feels good. It’s a good win,” he said. “We beat a good opponent, a really good opponent. It’s a Presidents’ Trophy team and they gave their best. They gave everything they had. It’s a good step.”

Bobrovksy is still Bobrovksy and, as winger Vladimir Tarasenko put it, he has been “for the last 10 years.”

Said Tarasenko, who represented Russia with Bobrovsky at the 2014 Winter Olympics: “He’s unbelievable.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2024 at 1:01 AM.