Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 28: Panthers, Stars advance to Conference Finals with Game 6 wins

Scott Maxwell
Scott Maxwell
Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers players
Credit: © Bob DeChiara

Two teams needed to win and force a Game 7 to keep their season alive, while the other two were looking to put away their opponent after failing to in Game 5 during Friday’s Stanley Cup Playoff action.

Forsling’s late game-winner eliminates Bruins in Game 6

The Boston Bruins looked to carry the momentum from their Game 5 win in Game 6, and on top of the fact that they had home ice and Brad Marchand was back in the lineup, things appeared to be looking in their favour. So when Pavel Zacha scored his first career playoff goal with 53 seconds left in the first to open the scoring for the Bruins, they probably felt even better.

But the Florida Panthers weren’t going to make things easy for the Bruins. They upped the pressure in the second period, and were rewarded with a goal from Anton Lundell midway through the frame, and now going into the third period, we had a tied hockey game.

Both teams played it tight in the third period, and as the game went along, it looked like we were set for overtime. But with less than two minutes left in the game, Jeremy Swayman let a Lundell shot bounce out a bit too much, and Gustav Forsling pounced on the rebound to find a hole past the Bruins netminder to take the 2-1 lead.

With only 1:33 left on the clock, it didn’t give a lot of time for the Bruins to tie the game again, and after some great defense from the Panthers, the score would hold at 2-1, and Florida ends the series in six games. Lundell was the lone player in the game with multiple points, while Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 of 23 in the win.

The Panthers advance to the Eastern Conference Final for the second straight season, and will face the New York Rangers in the third round. The Bruins are out before the Conference Finals for the fifth straight season, and are also eliminated by the Panthers for the second straight season.

Duchene ends double-OT thriller with series clincher

The Colorado Avalanche were playing with their lives on the line again, and it looked like it with how they played to start the game. They outshot and out-chanced the Dallas Stars through the first period, and then achieved another first in this series by finally opening the scoring in a game when Mikko Rantanen sniped the puck past Jake Oettinger on the power play in the second.

When the Stars needed a response in the third, it was the perfect opportunity for captain Jamie Benn to step up. Less than two minutes into the third period, a great passing play from Tyler Seguin and Evgenii Dadonov left Benn all on his own heading to the net, and he deked around Alexandar Georgiev to tie the game. That score held for the rest of the period, and we needed overtime to decide this game – and potentially the series.

Of course, we needed some discourse at some point. The Stars thought they had the series won when Mason Marchment scored shortly after the midway break in overtime, but it was called off immediately as Matt Duchene interfered with Georgiev in front of the net. However, it was a close review because the contract was created because Cale Makar pushed Duchene into his netminder, but with the initial no-goal call proved to be important as that call stood. The Stars put on the pressure to get the winning goal again, but it was no dice and we needed more overtime.

It looked like this game would never end, but not long after we reached the halfway point of the second overtime, we finally had an answer. And fittingly, it was Duchene, the name of intrigue who got a bit of redemption for helping create the controversy of the first attempt to end this game, along with the fact that it was in the arena he first called home in the NHL in Colorado. The Stars win the game 2-1, and they take the series in six games. Both goalies played spectacular in the game, with Oettinger stopping 29 of 30 shots while Georgiev saved 36 of 38.

The Stars advance to the Western Conference Final for the second straight season and the third time in five years. They will play either the Vancouver Canucks or the Edmonton Oilers, with the Canucks currently up 3-2 in their series. The Avs find themselves out by the second round for the sixth time in the past seven seasons, although the lone exception was, of course, when they won the Stanley Cup in 2022.

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