Later in the period, Florida lost forward Eetu Luostarinen at 16:59 after he was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for boarding Jackson Blake. The Panthers killed off that extended power play, which extended into the second period.
“That is a real inflection point in the game because of having those two guys out,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said, referring to being without top penalty killers Luostarinen and forward Sam Reinhart, who did not play because of a lower-body injury.
“You get Boqvist to come in, and Rodrigues came in, [Tomas] Nosek got more minutes, and that’s kind of where you get to in the playoffs. Somebody else has to block the shot. … When you are on the bench and they do it, you really get a bounce from it.”
Following a Gustav Forsling penalty for delay of game, however, Carolina beat Florida’s penalty kill when Stankoven tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 14:51 of the second by scoring on the rebound of Brent Burns’ point shot.
“We can play a lot better than that third period,” Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said. “Up to that point, there wasn’t much going on either way. We both had a few looks, not much. That gave us a chance to win the hockey game, but the third, it went off the rails. Bad plays, they made us pay, and it’s game over.”
Boqvist, who entered the lineup Saturday in place of Reinhart, gave Florida a 2-1 lead at 1:29 of the third on a breakaway. After a Carolina turnover in the neutral zone, he took a pass from Rodrigues, skated into the slot and put a one-armed, backhanded shot between the skates of Kochetkov.
Boqvist has two goals in 10 Stanley Cup Playoff games this season after not scoring in his final 31 regular-season games.
“Obviously a huge win for us,” he said. “Glad I could help out a little bit.”
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