The Florida Panthers don’t play hockey every day.

Florida captain Aleksander Barkov is an unassuming star.

The Florida Panthers showed their championship mettle from last year's run to the Stanley Cup by taking control early in their 5-2 win against the Carolina Hurricanes to open the Eastern Conference final Tuesday night.

Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad scored two tone-setting first-period goals while Sergei Bobrovsky remained strong in net as the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 in Tuesday night’s opener of their Eastern Conference final series.

Auston Matthews got his first goal of the series to break a scoreless tie in the third period, Joseph Woll stopped 22 shots, and the Toronto Maple Leafs kept their season alive by beating the Florida Panthers 2-0 in Game 6 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Friday night.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 shots and the Tampa Bay Lightning came back to beat the Florida Panthers 5-1 to cut their deficit in the first-round series to 2-1.

The wild-card berth has suited Minnesota well.

It’s been a long month for Aaron Ekblad.

The Florida Panthers have been playing without injured top forward Matthew Tkachuk for a month.

Brad Marchand stepped back onto the ice at the TD Garden in a Panthers practice jersey as the longtime Bruins player returned to Boston for the first time since he was traded to Florida.

Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad has been suspended 20 games without pay for violating the NHL and NHL Players Association’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs.

They waited 30 years.

Evan Rodrigues had two goals in the third period, Niko Mikkola and Aaron Ekblad also scored and the Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 to take a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was an eye-opener for the Edmonton Oilers.

This seems so fitting.

It's not exactly uncommon for a team that gets a championship shot and falls short one year to say that it'll be back the next.

Reminders of this run to the Stanley Cup Final will be everywhere when next season starts for the Florida Panthers.

Paul Maurice’s journey toward becoming the new coach of the Florida Panthers included a fortuitous flick of the remote control, plus was aided by a college admissions department.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period, Andrei Vasilevskiy remained red-hot with 34 saves and the Tampa Bay Lightning topped the Florida Panthers 4-1 in Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal series.

The Florida Panthers found what made them the NHL's best regular-season team just in time to win the franchise's first playoff series in 26 years.

The pressure is squarely on the Florida Panthers, New York Rangers and Calgary Flames down two games to one in their respective first-round series.

Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe each had a goal and an assist, and the Florida Panthers topped the Washington Capitals 5-1 on Thursday night to even their Eastern Conference first-round series at a game apiece.

The eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference have been set since before the All-Star break.

Anthony Duclair scored twice, Jonathan Huberdeau had a goal and four assists, and the Florida Panthers romped to a 9-3 rout of the NHL-leading Tampa Bay Lightning.

Andrew Brunette is ready to coach the Florida Panthers for as long as the team needs.

Joel Quenneville resigned as coach of the Florida Panthers on Thursday, two days after the second-winningest coach in NHL history was among those implicated for not swiftly responding to allegations by a Chicago Blackhawks player of being sexually assaulted by another coach during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs.

There used to be a thing called the Governor’s Cup, a trophy presented to whichever team won the annual regular season series between the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

All divisional play through the first two rounds of the playoffs made a major impact at the NHL trade deadline.

Some of the NHL's top teams got a head start on the trade deadline by making moves.