SUNRISE, Fla. -- Matthew Tkachuk's hands -- the ones that were so recently snapping a puck into the wide-open side of the Carolina Hurricanes net for the seconds-left game-winner that would send FLA Live Arena into hysterics -- were now wrapped around the Prince of Wales Trophy.

(M1) Hurricanes at (WC2) Panthers

Eastern Conference Final, Game 4

Florida leads best-of-7 series, 3-0

8 p.m. ET; TNT, CBC, SN, TVAS

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Aleksander Barkov will play for the Florida Panthers in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Even as the Carolina Hurricanes swarmed the Florida Panthers net, at times, even as they pumped 32 shots on Sergei Bobrovsky, it never felt as if one was going to go in. The goalie seemed calm back there, composed, ready for anything and everything, ready to create magic.

(M1) Hurricanes at (WC2) Panthers

8 p.m. ET; TNT, CBC, SN, TVAS

Eastern Conference Final, Game 3

Florida leads best-of-7 series 2-0

For days, since the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I've been waking up to my 4-year-old dragging his Boston Bruins-branded hockey net into my bedroom so he can play goalie, which makes sense since we live in Boston. Except, lately, he hasn't wanted to be the goalie for the Bruins. 

Whenever Paul Maurice returns to PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of the things he notices first is the trees.

When Bill Zito joined the Florida Panthers as their general manager on Sept. 2, 2020, he looked at the days and the weeks and the months that stretched out in front of him and saw a marathon ahead. He knew he had the right building blocks -- center Aleksander Barkov, goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, defenseman Aaron Ekblad -- but he also knew he needed so much more to find a finish line he could barely see at the time. 

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Sam Bennett is shivering. He's wearing shorts and a T-shirt and, to be fair, FLA Live Arena is an icebox in the best of times. But Bennett smiles as he sits in a cushioned seat in the front row of a coaches' room not long after practice. He's just gotten out of the cold tub and maybe, just maybe, the 10 minutes he spent in there was a little too long.

TORONTO -- The skates hung behind Sergei Bobrovsky's head, atop his locker in the visiting dressing room at Scotiabank Arena, white and scuffed and dripping. Long after the music had been turned down and the cheers had ceased and the media duties had been completed, the steady dripping continued.