Verhaeghe comes up clutch again for Panthers in Game 1 of Stanley Cup Final

SUNRISE, Fla. -- If Paul Maurice could solve Carter Verhaeghe, he would. He would take the bits and pieces, the witch’s brew of skills that has yielded one of the most clutch goal-scorers of the past few seasons, distill them and pass them along to the rest of his charges.

Alas, the recipe remains a mystery.

But Maurice, who has watched Verhaeghe score 10 goals in these Stanley Cup Playoffs, second in franchise history only to the 11 scored last postseason by Matthew Tkachuk, can only guess at the magic that allows him to convert over and over and over again in the biggest of moments.

Verhaeghe, the player with the most playoff goals in Panthers playoff history, did it again on Saturday. His 25th postseason goal, the game-opener that turned into the game-winner, got the Panthers rolling in a 3-0 win against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena.

“Yeah, I’m used to it, I guess,” the Panthers coach said. “But he is an unusual performer, that man. He is so good in the most intense and almost chaotic play. He can raise that level. I don’t know that I have much to say about it because I don’t know that I fully understand it. Clearly, if there was something there I could pass along to somebody else, I would do that as well.”

It was the second straight season in which Verhaeghe scored a game-winner on June 8, with the forward having been responsible for the overtime winner in Game 3 last season, the sole win the Panthers had in a five-game loss in the Final to the Vegas Golden Knights.

“He’s a gamer,” Maurice said. “I think maybe what I love the most is that it was not an easy path to the National Hockey League. He had to fight for all of it to get there. I think he trained himself to be wired in games the entire game. And that’s why when he gets into the bigger games, that’s how he operates.

“He and [defenseman] Gustav Forsling are similar in that. They had to work and try and compete and fight. He played in the East Coast [Hockey] League. He had to fight his way here. So, when it’s wired and it’s on, that’s his wheelhouse.”

The goal came at 3:59 of the first period, a score that breathed life into a Panthers team that had already seen the Oilers start to get some traction in the offensive zone. Aleksander Barkov took the puck up ice and passed to Sam Reinhart along the wall. Reinhart got it back to Barkov in the right circle, and Barkov’s backhand, cross-ice pass found Verhaeghe for the one-timer.

“He can skate with anyone and he’s got a release that’s as good as anybody’s,” Reinhart said. “So when the games get tighter, that’s when he gets more effective and more valuable.”

For Verhaeghe, who joined the Panthers four seasons ago after a year with the Tampa Bay Lightning, it has been a steady rise. All 25 career goals in the playoffs have come with the Panthers, 13 of those go-ahead goals, the most among all players since 2021.

“A lot of it is reading the game very well,” Tkachuk said. “You’ve got to be in the right positions. You have to think the game very well. He does all that. … I know it wasn’t a crazy shot on the goal, but he’s one of the few guys in the League that can score from distances and score from places that just the rest of us can’t score from.”

It has not been an easy path to this point for Verhaeghe, nor a short one. He spent time in the American Hockey League and the ECHL, as Maurice mentioned, on his way to NHL stardom. Perhaps, as Maurice posited, that why he is able to elevate his game, to push past the nerves and the worries and the lights.

There is talent there, and smarts, and a refusal to be cowed. It was why he was able, yet again, to convert when someone else might have thrown the puck wide or into Stuart Skinner’s pads or fumbled it.

Instead, he had three shots and three blocked shots and the game-winning goal on the anniversary of that other game-winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final.

You might say he’s making it a habit.

“He’s such a unique player where he’s so dangerous when the puck’s on his stick,” said forward Evan Rodrigues, who scored the game’s second goal. “You give him an inch and it’s in the back of the net. He’s got elite speed and in the playoffs, he elevates his game because he gets to the middle of the ice, he wants the puck on his stick, and he has an elite shot.

“He definitely capitalizes on his opportunities.”

In the playoffs, that’s 25 times -- and counting.

NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers contributed to this report.