Strong third periods, Dmitry Kulikov’s full-circle moment and more Florida Panthers notes

The Florida Panthers have had a knack for shutting opponents down late in games during the playoffs.

Entering Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final against the New York Rangers on Saturday, Florida has outscored opponents 23-10 in the third period over the course of the postseason.

Through the first five games of the Eastern Conference final, the Rangers have scored just two third-period goals while only getting 39 shots on goal in the third.

“I don’t know if it’s just the way it goes, but we’re not done until the game is over,” Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour said. “No matter if we’re up in the game or down in the game, we’re gonna bring it.”

Kulikov appreciating run

Dmitry Kulikov saw the Panthers at arguably their worst.

Now, he is in the precipice of playing for a Stanley Cup with them.

Kulikov spent his first seven NHL seasons with the Panthers after Florida picked him 14th overall in 2009 NHL Draft. That stretch included five years with Florida as one of the worst teams in the NHL and two years with first-round exits from the playoffs.

He then hopped around to seven other teams over his ensuing seven years before returning to Florida on a one-year deal.

Now, he is one game away from making it to the Stanley Cup Finals with them.

Kulikov had played in just 16 playoff games since his first stint with the Panthers ended before signing with Florida this offseason. He will surpass that mark in this postseason run alone when he steps onto the ice Saturday for Florida’s postential series-clinching Game 6.

“It’s not that I envisioned that I would be back with the Panthers, but I always thought there was something there,” Kulikov said. “I know the team has been doing really well and last year made it to the Finals but came up short. I wanted to be part of that, for sure. I knew that we could do some good things.”

Containing Rangers’ top players

Through the first five games of the Eastern Conference final, the Panthers have held the Rangers’ top line of Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Filip Chytil to just one goal — a Kreider shorthanded goal in Game 5.

Artemi Panarin, who had 120 points in the regular season, has just three assists through five games as well.

How has Florida done it?

“Well, I’ve got a Selke Award winner — not his first,” Panthers coach Maurice said of Aleksander Barkov, who was named the NHL’s top two-way forward this season for the second time in his career. “We don’t prep differently for the elite players on their team to their fourth-line players. We view them all the same. The difference would be our elite players are going to play against their elite players. I don’t think there’s anything tactical. I don’t think there’s anything from a coaching point of view other than we adhere to a style of game pretty well. We didn’t circle [Tampa Bay’s Nikita] Kucherov and we didn’t circle [Boston’ David] Pastrnak. If I knew what I was doing, we might be able to keep Vinny Trocheck off the scoresheet. Apparently I can’t, so I’m just going to play all my best players against all their best players.”

Piling up the hits

Florida enters Game 6 on Saturday having logged an NHL-high 699 hits throughout the playoffs as a team, an average of 42.63 per game.

The Panthers have seven players with at least 40 hits each: Aaron Ekblad (53), Sam Bennett (49), Eetu Luostarinen (47), Niko Mikkola (44), Evan Rodrigues (43), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (42) and Matthew Tkachuk (40).

They said it

▪ “It is a normal day today. There’s no reason to be nervous. We’ve been in a lot of situations like this, so it’s just business as usual. Play our game and don’t really think about all the other stuff. It’s a hockey game. We’ve got to win a hockey game. That’s our focus.” -Panthers forward Sam Bennett on the mentality heading into Game 6

▪ “It starts with faceoffs. You win that, you kill off a good amount of seconds. After that, we just pressure. It’s a lot of pressure. [We try] to not give them time and space.” - Panthers forward Kevin Stenlund on the team’s penalty kill, which has allowed just one goal against the Rangers.