Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 34: Panthers dominate Canes again; go home up 2-0

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop exciting action in the NHL as we witness history in another team looking to win a championship. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop of everything that happened in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

If you thought the Carolina Hurricanes were in trouble after dropping Game 1 to the Florida Panthers, you haven’t seen trouble yet. Game 2 saw a bad situation get much worse, as it was once again all Panthers in Carolina (and since this isn’t football, that’s not good).

The first period saw the Panthers jump to an early lead, as a pinch from Gustav Forsling generated a turnover, and Forsling sniped one past Frederik Andersen to open the scoring just 77 seconds into the game. Florida got two more from Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett midway through the frame, and it was already a disaster for the Hurricanes down 3-0 at the end of the first period. You know the Panthers were in good shape when Sam Reinhart left the game and it didn’t impact the game at all.

The Hurricanes thought they had a bounce go there way when a pinch from Brent Burns got the puck on the stick of Sebastian Aho, who beat Sergei Bobrovsky for their first goal. But, the goal was under review for offside, and unlike his goal that needed a review in Game 1, this one got turned back and kept the score at 3-0.

That clear sucked any remaining life out of the Hurricanes because the Panthers just carried it home with ease. Bennett scored his second of the game in the second period, and Aleksander Barkov scored on the power play in the third, and Florida won the game by a score of 5-0. They take a 2-0 series lead back home, while the Hurricanes’ losing streak in the Conference Finals extends to 14 games.