On road to extinction, Panthers take life turn

The Florida Panthers were right there Thursday night. They were so close to out of the NHL playoffs, Lord Stanley and his big silver cup and all that jazz began to feel pretty much like a rumor. The playoffs themselves began to seem like a memory that teased us awhile before deciding that, all in all, it would rather be in Philadelphia.

But no!

Because these Cats will not die.

You cannot kill them.

If they have nine lives, figure they used up a couple Thursday night in the bedlam of Miami Arena.

They blew an early 2-0 lead, but came back.

They blew a 3-2 lead in the last minute of regulation, but came back.

First Stu Barnes in regulation and then Dave Lowry in overtime scored to knot this hockey series at two games and give the Cats a real chance -- if not a real good one -- to keep the Cup in sight.

The good fortune of Barnes and Lowry may have been preordained. (You think things like that when fate seems too good to be true.)

Consider:

Long limo pulls up Thursday morning in front of the hotel on Fort Lauderdale beach where the Panthers stay during the playoffs. Barnes, Bill Lindsay and Lowry chance to saunter past as the door opens and out steps Demi Moore, back in town to re-shoot a new ending to her upcoming Striptease movie.

``What happened to you guys?'' says the actress to the trio of strangers with the matching black eyes.

She didn't know. What happened to them was . . . hockey.

Darn thing just keeps happening, too. That cold rush of mayhem interrupted by small moments of magic -- it happened again Thursday night.

Ain't it great?!

No other sport can set a jammed building alight with such quicksilver magic, and this sport delivered with Thursday night's intense 4-3 survival by Florida.

You had to be inside Miami Arena to feel the NHL season come alive like it did. To see the Stanley Cup itself return to a semblance of focus.

Until that moment happened -- and then happened again -- it had begun to feel too much like the end. Up 2-0 and then suddenly tied by two Philadelphia goals within 78 seconds, the Panthers seemed to be fading fast. All momentum was sapped from the Cats. The electric crowd went quiet. A deadly 3-1 series hole and a somber flight to Philly seemed in the offing.

A fan in a Flyers jersey held aloft a large rubber rat . . . inside an industrial-size mousetrap.

Then, that small moment of magic amid the mayhem.

Paul Laus cocks his stick and fires from the blue line, and the puck is hurtling maybe four feet off the ice, net-bound. Barnes is stationed in front of goalie Ron Hextall, and Barnes' stick is raised parallel to the ice.

He looks like a baseball batter preparing to bunt.

And the puck is coming at him like a bullet.

It barely nicks his stick.

The bunt would have caromed foul.

But this ain't baseball, grandma.

The redirected puck off Barnes' blade beats Hextall -- one of those moments better seen in slo-mo, without sound.

The goal that got it started Thursday was like that, too. The first of two by slump-snapping Rob Niedermayer was that moment of elegance. He glides, glides, veers sharply to his right and just flicks the puck home, as casually as you'd swipe at a gnat on your forearm.

Then, overtime, and more magic is left.

These Cats. . .

. . .they have lives left.