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Turner Sports and ESPN are carrying the NHL playoffs after they aired for 16 years on NBC and NBCSN

Jordan Staal was 20 years old when he held up the Stanley Cup in victory, letting out a big howl, a blondish playoff beard making him look older.

With only two weeks left until the start of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Florida Panthers are playing as well as they have at any point this season — and nearly as well as they ever have in their history.

SUNRISE, Fla. — The nightmare scenario for any postseason favorite — and the Florida Panthers will be one next month — is to run into the hot goaltender once the Stanley Cup playoffs begin.

The Florida Panthers, with their massive lead in the Eastern Conference and Atlantic Division, know they won’t have many chances left to play in potential postseason atmospheres before the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs begin next month, but they got one Saturday and thrived in it.

The Florida Panthers have known for a long time they would be going to the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s why they always talk about the “bigger prize,” as Andrew Brunette put it Thursday, rather than lingering too much the many milestones they’ve hit along the way this year.

CHICAGO -- It was Niklas Hjalmarsson Legacy Night at the United Center on Thursday, but it might as well have been called Stanley Cup reunion night.