Aleksander Barkov had two of the Panthers' five third-period goals in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final against the Hurricanes on Saturday night.
Aleksander Barkov had two of the Panthers' five third-period goals in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final against the Hurricanes on Saturday night.Lynne Sladky/Associated Press
SUNRISE, Fla. — Niko Mikkola and Aleksander Barkov each scored twice, and the Panthers scored five goals in a nine-minute span of the third period to beat the Hurricanes, 6-2, on Saturday night and move one win from a third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final.
Jesper Boqvist — playing for the injured Sam Reinhart — scored the go-ahead goal early in the third for Florida, which now leads the Eastern Conference finals 3-0. Brad Marchand also scored for the Panthers and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots.
Logan Stankoven and Seth Jarvis scored for Carolina, which has now dropped 15 consecutive East finals games — getting swept by the Penguins in 2009, Bruins in ′19, Panthers in ′23, and are now on the brink of it happening again.
Game 4 is Monday in Sunrise.
Florida’s five third-period goals were a club record for any playoff period and ruined what had seemed like a good move by Carolina to switch goaltenders going into Game 3. The Hurricanes went with Pyotr Kochetkov in net, after Frederik Andersen gave up nine goals on just 36 shots in the first five periods of the series.
Kochetkov stopped 14 of 15 shots through two periods. The third, not so much.
WATCH THIS ONE AGAIN pic.twitter.com/NUdIld5f5j
— x - Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) May 25, 2025
Florida got a break to make it 1-0. Barkov threw a pass across the goal crease, the puck hitting the stick of Evan Rodrigues before finding Mikkola — who tried to feed it back across for Barkov.
It never got there. Mikkola’s pass deflected off Hurricanes defenseman Dmitry Orlov and past Kochetkov, opening the scoring and giving Florida an 11-2 cumulative score lead in the series to that point.
Stankoven — who was flat-out robbed by Bobrovsky earlier in the game — tied it on the power play at 14:51 of the second, a breakthrough of sorts for the Hurricanes.
ANOTHER BOBBERY. pic.twitter.com/E8lQFxreAC
— x - Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) May 25, 2025
Brent Burns took a shot from near the blue line that Bobrovsky stopped. The rebound skipped off Bobrovsky’s leg and Stankoven redirected it home to make it 1-1 — the first tie of the series, other than 0-0 scores to begin games.
But the third, like the bulk of the series, was all Florida.
GOTTA SEE IT: BRAD MARCHAND SCORES HIS FIRST GOAL OF THE EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL 🤩
The Panthers net their FIFTH goal of the third period to take a commanding lead in Game 3 😼
Presented by Moosehead Breweries 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/wih9h8QHC8
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 25, 2025