Panthers’ Carter Verhaeghe came up clutch yet again in Game 1 Stanley Cup Final win
By now, Paul Maurice isn’t surprised when Carter Verhaeghe delivers in the most important moments for the Florida Panthers. The coach has only been running the Panthers for two years and yet the clutch moments are already almost too numerous to fully recount.
In the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, Verhaeghe scored four game-winning goals, including one in overtime to give the Panthers their only win of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. In the first three rounds of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, Verhaeghe added two more game-winning goals. No one was surprised, then, to see Verhaeghe deliver yet again in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final on Saturday, opening the scoring for the series just 3:59 into the first period to send Florida on its way to a 3-0 win against the Edmonton Oilers.
“I’m used to it, I guess,” Maurice said. “I don’t really fully understand it.”
Verhaeghe, who joined the Panthers on a meager $1 million-per-year contract in the 2020 offseason, is now firmly entrenched as one of the best postseason performers in Florida history — and the NHL, as a whole — and he added another line to his playoff resume to kick off the Panthers’ second consecutive Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena.
On one of his line’s first shifts of the series, star center Aleksander Barkov pushed the puck up the ice, passed to his right to Sam Reinhart, got the puck back from the All-Star forward and then slid one more pass across the front of the net to tee up Verhaeghe for a tap-in goal. The Panthers went up 1-0 with 16:01 left in the first period and grinded out a series-opening victory to give Florida its first-ever lead in a Cup Final.
The goal was Verhaeghe’s 10th of these Cup playoffs — tied for the second most in a single playoffs in franchise history — and gave him his 10th game-winning goal in four postseasons since he arrived in Sunrise.
The Panthers have only won two Cup Final games in their history, and Verhaeghe had the game-winning goal in both.
“In those tight games, he can skate with anyone,” Reinhart said. “When the games get tighter, that’s when he gets more effective and more valuable.”
Verhaeghe’s line with Barkov and Reinhart face probably the most daunting challenge of the series for Florida, tasked with matching up against superstar Connor McDavid and the Oilers’ high-powered top line, and the trio took its lumps in Game 1. The Verhaeghe-Barkov-Reinhart line gave up 23 shot attempts in 12:39 together and only generated nine.
Still, the trio finished with the edge on the scoreboard, scoring the early goal to let Florida play nearly the entire game with the lead. Even with the defensive challenge his line faced, Verhaeghe still had three shots, two scoring chances and a high-danger chance while blocking three shots. Aside from a careless high-sticking penalty late in the first period, Verhaeghe gave the Panthers exactly what they look for from him in the opener.
“He is an unusual performer, that man,” Maurice said. “He’s so good in the most intense and almost chaotically play. He can raise that level.
“Clearly if there was something there I could pass along to somebody else, I would do that.”
The cleanest explanation — because at this point, the clutch goals are too frequent to just be some fluke — is how cleanly he fits next to Barkov. The goal, after all, was mostly the captain’s doing, driving end to end and making a series of quick passes to free up Verhaeghe for an open look.
Verhaeghe has been the perfect wingman, though. Barkov clamps down on defense and Verhaeghe, with his top-end speed and undeniable goal-scoring instinct, takes off as soon as Florida gets a chance to get out in transition.
Sometimes, Verhaeghe scores from long range. Sometimes, like in Game 1, he scores from in close. The one consistency is he’s scoring the goal whenever the Panthers need it most.
“It’s really easy to play with him. I just kind of go back and he gets the puck,” Verhaeghe said. “I just kind of went to the net and he put it on my stick.”
