"Just super excited," said Tkachuk, who was mobbed by the entire team on the ice after potting the game-winning goal. "We live to fight another day. We stayed alive. Bob makes a hell of a save otherwise our season's over. Then we go out and we were able to score pretty early in overtime. Things happen fast in the playoffs and now they've got to come down to Florida for another one."
Breaking the ice in Boston, the Panthers jumped out to an early lead when Carter Verhaeghe intercepted a pass in the defensive zone and lured Linus Ullmark out of his net before sending a pass into the slot to set up Anthony Duclair for a goal to make it 1-0 at 8:26 of the first period.
Taking the game to the Bruins early on, Florida led 22-12 in its after 20 minutes.
"We've been focused on it all series," Panthers forward Sam Bennett said of the team's physicality. "That's part of our game and how we're going to play. We're going to keep doing that."
On the power play in the second period, the Bruins pulled even when Marchand followed up on his own shot and poked the ensuing rebound through Bobrovsky's pads to make it 1-1 at 2:27.
From there, the Bruins would continue to pepper the net with pucks, but Bobrovsky and the Panthers stood stall. With the two-time Vezina Trophy winner making 17 saves in the middle frame, the Panthers were eventually rewarded with an opening at the other end of the ice.
Showing off his relentlessness on the forecheck, Verhaeghe, despite being surrounded by four Bruins, sent a pass into the slot and right onto the stick of Bennett, who then ripped a shot over Ullmark's glove to put the Panthers on top 2-1 at 18:15.
After missing the first four games of the series while nursing an injury, Patrice Bergeron tied things up for the Bruins early in the third period when he re-directed a shot from Marchand past Bobrovsky on the power play to make it 2-2 at 4:33.
But that tie would be short-lived.
Less than a minute after the Bruins captain got the game knotted up, Sam Reinhart took a pass from Tkachuk and answered with a power-play goal of his own from the slot to put the Panthers back on top 3-2 at 5:14.
Netting his fifth goal of the series, Taylor Hall quickly got the game tied again when he found a loose puck in the slot, turned around and roofed the rubber past Bobrovsky to make it 3-3 at 9:16.
After killing a late power play for the Bruins -- and also being denied a power play of their own after a blatant slashing penalty from Charlie McAvoy was ignored by officials -- the Panthers managed to get the game to overtime when Bobrovsky denied Marchand on a breakaway at the buzzer.
Under fire all game, Bobrovsky finished with 44 saves on 47 shots.
"I felt that the pressure needed to be on Sergei to play this game," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said. "He needed to carry that weight. Like Matthew Tkachuk carries the weight, like Barkov does, the leaders carry the weight of your team. He needed to carry that weight, and he was brilliant. That was all him. It's not the coaching decision, it's not the faith I showed in him, that's all Sergei Bobrovsky."
With Bobrovsky leaving the door open for a spectacular finish in the extra frame, Verhaeghe chased down a loose puck on the forecheck, forced a turnover on Ullmark and got the puck to Tkachuk, who waited before firing a shot into the abandoned net to secure the 4-3 win.
"We've shown it all year," Bennett said. "People were counting us out a long time ago. We're a team that's going to fight until the bitter end. That's in our nature. We showed it again tonight."
