The Florida Panthers are ready to write the next chapter of their playoff story in Carolina

SUNRISE — The vibes have been good in South Florida over the last few days and rightfully so. The team that everybody wrote off is still fighting for the Stanley Cup and now they are just a day away from Game 1 of the third round. 

Both the Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes won their second round series last week in five games, so the two sides have had to sit around and wait until the west sorted out their conference final representatives. 

“It feels like you’ve been playing every other day for the last two months, you get a couple days (off) it’s kind of nice,” Carter Verhaeghe said. “We’re ready to get back at it.”

Verhaeghe and the rest of the Panthers will be back at it tomorrow. 

The team will fly to Raleigh today ahead of Thursday’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. It will be the first time since 1996 that the franchise will play in the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

This whole run for the Panthers has been nothing short of eventful. Everyone knows how they snuck into the playoffs by just one point after going on a 6-1-1 run to end the regular season. They one upped that by defeating the Presidents’ Trophy winning Boston Bruins in Game 7 overtime after being down in the series 3-1. The most recent chapter in this story book run was less drama-filled but nonetheless impressive, taking down the Toronto Maple Leafs in five very close games.

Now the Panthers turn the page as they look to continue this postseason story in Carolina. 

“It’s the dream everybody dreams of when you were a kid growing up. You always watched the NHL Playoffs, that’s the biggest thing of the year,” Anton Lundell said on being in the postseason. “I’m really excited to be here and get the opportunity to still play hockey, we want to make the best of it.”

Getting the opportunity to live that dream hasn’t been a walk in the park for the Panthers, or for any team that still remains in the dance for the cup. As the final four is set to kick off, the Panthers are keeping the same mentality that has gotten them to this point.

“We have a lot of belief in our group and I think we showed that in the past two series,” Josh Mahura said. “Going into this series we know we are preparing the same way, same mindset. Nothing really changes that.”  

Florida has yet another difficult opponent standing in their way of hockey’s greatest treasure and the Canes could be the toughest foe yet.

Carolina were the Metropolitan division winners in the regular season and came out on top of that division in the postseason as well, defeating both the New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils. 

They continued their regular season play in the postseason, sitting atop many of the playoff statistics leaderboards, which Panthers head coach Paul Maurice pointed out. 

“Analytically, Carolina is the best team in the league, that’s just a fact.”

Florida has been the underdog all playoffs long, and if they were to advance, they’d probably still hold that title. 

The team knows the public opinions on them and frankly, they couldn’t care less. 

“We just go out there and try to play, we don’t think we’re underdogs,” Verhaeghe said. “We don’t really focus too much on who was favored to win or what people are betting on.” 

Not focusing on outside factors has worked just fine for the Panthers and they’ll get to continue this story tomorrow night at 8 p.m. in Raleigh, North Carolina for Game 1. 

If you want to bet on the Stanley Cup Playoffs, head over to Prize Picks. New users will have their initial deposit matched up to $100 if you use the code “five”.