In Barkov They Trust: The Panthers, led by their captain, are headed back to the Stanley Cup Final

The entire play took eight seconds, and basically summed up why the Florida Panthers have enormous, nonstop belief in Aleksander Barkov.

Third period, Wednesday night, Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, game tied at 3. Barkov picks up the puck in the right corner. He skates around the end boards, as Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov is trying to use his entire 214-pound frame to move Barkov one direction or the other. Orlov had no chance.

Barkov stopped on a dime, turned around, ducked back toward the net and slid the puck to a place that only Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe could reach. Verhaeghe turned that pass into the winner, and with that, the Panthers were headed back to their third consecutive Stanley Cup Final.

In Barky They Trusted. Again.

“Such a great player,” Verhaeghe said. “It was such a great play by him. It was all him.”

The funny part is that Barkov would hate hearing such praise, and he surely would never say anything like that about himself. He is a most unassuming superstar, someone who doesn’t care about the spotlight, someone who was legitimately surprised when fans recognized him last year at a Florida Atlantic basketball game in Boca Raton — about 20 minutes north of where the Panthers play their home games.

But he is Florida’s best player. And he has led the defending Stanley Cup champions back to the title round for a third consecutive season. This year's matchup is a rematch: Florida is playing Edmonton for the second straight year, after beating the Oilers in seven games last year.

“He’s one of the best in the world at that, if not the best,” Florida forward Sam Reinhart said of Barkov's play to set up the gamewinner in the East clincher. “He’s got so much strength. Big players make big plays at the biggest moments when you need them, and he’s certainly the leader of this team.”

The Florida-Edmonton matchup will be the 11th title-round rematch in the Stanley Cup era and the first since Pittsburgh and Detroit played for the trophy in 2008 and 2009.

“The most important step is ahead of us,” goalie Sergei Bobrovsky said.

The Panthers are the ninth franchise in NHL history to make the Stanley Cup Final in at least three consecutive seasons. Barkov became the first Finnish captain to get the honor of having the inaugural hoist of the Cup when Florida won the title last year, and he was there through a lot of lean years for the Panthers. Forget the Cup final; the Panthers couldn’t make the playoffs for much of their history.

That seems so long ago now. No team has played more postseason games in the last four years than the Panthers, and there’s at least four more games this season left to go.

“I think it was a long time coming,” Barkov said. “Obviously, there’s been a lot of work put in by this organization to become better and reach the level where we want to win Stanley Cups, we want to compete for Stanley Cups every single year. There are 31 other teams in the league and it’s hard every single year. They want to do that too, so it’s not easy. But we’ve managed to do it three years in a row, which is, I think, an incredible achievement so far.”

Aaron Ekblad is in his 11th season as a Panther — one behind Barkov — and he remembers those tough times. Florida once missed the playoffs by a point during their tenure; some years, they missed by five or six wins. They weren’t terrible. They just weren’t that good.

But he remembers why he always remained steadfast in the belief that the franchise would get to this point.

“We’ve always had Sasha Barkov,” Ekblad said. “So, there was always hope, especially in those down years. We always had Barky to lead the way.”

He led then. He led now. And another trip to the final awaits.

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Florida Panthers' Aleksander Barkov (16) skates over to accept the Prince of Wales Trophy following Game 5 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers' Aleksander Barkov (16) clears the puck past Carolina Hurricanes' Jaccob Slavin (74) during the first period of Game 5 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov (C) and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, right, pose with the Prince of Wales trophy at the end of Game 5 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in Raleigh, N.C. They advance to the Stanley Cup finals. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)

Florida Panthers' Carter Verhaeghe, right, celebrates his goal with teammate Aleksander Barkov (16), center with Sam Reinhart (13) and Carolina Hurricanes' William Carrier (28) nearby during the third period of Game 5 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday, May 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker)

RHO, Italy (AP) — No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.

In the pursuit of maximum glide and minimum friction, Olympic officials brought on ice master Mark Messer, a veteran of six previous Olympic speedskating tracks and the ice technician in charge of the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Canada — one of the fastest tracks in the world with over 300 records.

Messer has been putting that experience to work one thin layer of ice at a time since the end of October at the new Speed Skating Stadium, built inside adjacent trade fair halls in the city of Rho just north of Milan.

“It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in icemaking,’’ Messer said during an interview less than two weeks into the process.

If Goldilocks were a speedskater, hockey ice would be medium hard, for fast puck movement and sharp turns. Figure skating ice would be softer, allowing push off for jumps and so the ice doesn’t shatter on landing. Curling ice is the softest and warmest of all, for controlled sliding.

For speedskating ice to be just right, it must be hard, cold and clean. And very, very smooth.

“The blades are so sharp, that if there is some dirt, the blade will lose the edge,’’ Messer said, and the skater will lose speed.

Speedskater Enrico Fabris, who won two Olympic golds in Turin in 2006, has traded in his skates to be deputy sports manager at the speedskating venue in Rho. For him, perfect ice means the conditions are the same for all skaters — and then if it's fast ice, so much the better.

"It's more of a pleasure to skate on this ice,'' he said.

Messer’s first Olympics were in Calgary in 1988 — the first time speedskating was held indoors. “That gave us some advantages because we didn’t have to worry about the weather, wind blowing or rain,’’ he said. Now he is upping the challenge by becoming the first ice master to build a temporary rink for the Olympics.

Before Messer arrived in Italy, workers spent weeks setting up insulation to level the floor and then a network of pipes and rubber tubes that carry glycol — an antifreeze — that is brought down to minus 7 or minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 to 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to make the ice.

Water is run through a purification system — but it can’t be too pure, or the ice that forms will be too brittle. Just the right amount of impurities “holds the ice together,’’ Messer said.

The first layers of water are applied slowly, with a spray nozzle; after the ice reaches a few centimeters it is painted white — a full day’s work — and the stripes are added to make lanes.

“The first one takes about 45 minutes. And then as soon as it freezes, we go back and do it again, and again and again. So we do it hundreds of times,’’ Messer said.

As the ice gets thicker, and is more stable, workers apply subsequent layers of water with hoses. Messer attaches his hose to hockey sticks for easier spreading.

What must absolutely be avoided is dirt, dust or frost — all of which can cause friction for the skaters, slowing them down. The goal is that when the skaters push “they can go as far as possible with the least amount of effort,’’ Messer said.

The Zamboni ice resurfacing machine plays a key role in keeping the track clean, cutting off a layer and spraying water to make a new surface.

One challenge is gauging how quickly the water from the resurfacing machine freezes in the temporary rink.

Another is getting the ice to the right thickness so that the Zamboni, weighing in at six tons, doesn’t shift the insulation, rubber tubing or ice itself.

“When you drive that out, if there’s anything moving it will move. We don’t want that,’’ Messer said.

The rink got its first big test on Nov. 29-30 during a Junior World Cup event. In a permanent rink, test events are usually held a year before the Olympics, leaving more time for adjustments. “We have a very small window to learn,’’ Messer acknowledged.

Dutch speedskater Kayo Vos, who won the men’s neo-senior 1,000 meters, said the ice was a little soft — but Messer didn’t seem too concerned.

“We went very modest to start, now we can start to change the temperatures and try to make it faster and still maintain it as a safe ice,’’ he said.

Fine-tuning the air temperature and humidity and ice temperature must be done methodically — taking into account that there will be 6,000 spectators in the venue for each event. The next real test will be on Jan. 31, when the Olympians take to the ice for their first training session.

“Eighty percent of the work is done but the hardest part is the last 20 percent, where we have to try to find the values and the way of running the equipment so all the skaters get the same conditions and all the skaters get the best conditions,’’ Messer said.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Serpentines are set on the ice of the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Workers clean the ice surface during a peed skating Junior World Cup and Olympic test event, in Rho, near Milan, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)