How the Florida Panthers have mastered the clutch moments — even in the Stanley Cup Final

The Florida Panthers’ 3-2 overtime win in Game 3 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final on Thursday would have been unbelievable if it wasn’t all so familiar.

They were down to the Las Vegas Golden Knights with less than three minutes to go, their season all but done. They had seen worse. They literally were on the verge of elimination in Game 7 of Round 1, down by a goal with less than a minute to go, only to rally and shock the Bruins.

They won a tense overtime period. When haven’t they done that? They have now won all seven of the OT games they have played in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, including one in four overtimes in the Eastern Conference finals last month.

“It’s the time you want to be playing,” forward Sam Reinhart said Thursday. “We wouldn’t want it any other way.”

In hindsight, the ending was almost obvious.

Superstar right wing Matthew Tkachuk, who already has four game-winning goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs, was the hero, scoring a game-tying goal with 2:13 left in regulation to force overtime. Left wing Carter Verhaeghe, who’s now the first player in NHL history to score multiple overtime goals in back-to-back postseasons, ended the game, scoring with 15:33 left in overtime. The Panthers, who were minutes from a crippling third straight loss to start the Stanley Cup Final, are now down only 2-1 in the series and will be right back at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise on Saturday at 8 p.m. for Game 4 with a chance to even the Cup Final.

It’s the type of result — and ending — capable of washing away everything that went wrong for most of three games to start the Final. They lost by eight combined goals to the Golden Knights in their first two games in Las Vegas, then trailed for most of the final period in Game 3 after blowing an early lead and letting the Golden Knights storm ahead with two power-play goals.

Florida is 0 for 12 on the power play and has let Vegas start 6 for 16. The Panthers have yet to score more than two goals in regulation. None of it has mattered. Florida is comfortable playing within these tight margins and proved it yet again Thursday.

“It was enough,” Reinhart said.

As so much of this run through the Cup playoffs has, Game 3 tested the Panthers’ resilience and not just because they blew a 1-0 lead in the first period.

Long before he scored yet another clutch goal, Tkachuk missed almost a full period after a hard open-ice hit by Golden Knights forward Keegan Kolesar.

When Tkachuk went back to the locker room to be checked for a concussion with 12:44 left, Florida was up 1-0 on a goal Tkachuk assisted. When Tkachuk returned, the score was tied at 1-1.

Tkachuk didn’t fire a shot on goal until the third period and, on his third, scored perhaps the biggest goal in franchise history.

The Panthers yanked star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky out of the net to create a 6-on-5 advantage, and Florida strung together a long possession.

Tkachuk thought, as he often does, about advice former All-Star left wing Keith Tkachuk gave him.

“My dad’s always said, ‘Pucks to net go through you if it’s going to go in, so why not go to the net?’” Tkachuk said Thursday. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

All-Star center Aleksander Barkov won a battle on the boards to get the puck up top to Verhaeghe. The winger launched one shot from the outside and Tkachuk nearly tipped it past Vegas goaltender Adin Hill.

The Panthers reset and Verhaeghe fired again. This time, the shot created a rebound and Tkachuk was in the right spot to tap it into an open net.

“It was a very easy goal, actually,” Tkachuk said.

Once Florida got to overtime, the Panthers figured they would be fine.

“We’ve been so good in overtime,” Verhaeghe said.

Verhaeghe, who scored the overtime goal in Game 7 in Boston in May and an overtime goal in Round 1 last year to give Florida its first series victory since the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs, got open at the top of the zone and ripped in another game-winning goal, and the story on these Panthers changed again.

In the first round, they were some of the biggest underdogs in the history of the Cup playoffs. In the second round, they were still massive underdogs to the Maple Leafs, who became the new Stanley Cup favorites once Florida bounced the Bruins.

By the start of the Final, the Panthers eliminated most doubt about whether this run was just a fluke. They beat three 50-win teams, all with legitimate Cup aspirations, and the Golden Knights were no better than any of the other challengers they bested.

Two losses in Vegas made them clear underdogs again. A third would have meant they were all but certainly done — only one team in the history of the Final has ever rallied after winning the first three games and that was back in 1942.

The Panthers are comfortable here.

“They all counted us out before the Final even started, so being in that position just probably added to it about,” Tkachuk said. “We’re the type of team where we know what that end goal wants to be for us and we don’t know how we’re going to get there, but we know that we’re going to do everything we can to give us an opportunity to have that.”