Brad Marchand makes feelings known about reaching Stanley Cup Final after midseason trade from Bruins 

Brad Marchand made his feelings known after reaching the Stanley Cup Final with the Florida Panthers, months after being traded from the Boston Bruins midseason.

Florida punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night, closing out the Eastern Conference final with a 5-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes to take the series in five games.

Brad Marchand, who spent 16 seasons with the Bruins, was traded to Florida at the trade deadline.

After Wednesday's game, TNT reporter Jackie Redmond asked Marchand how it felt to be heading to the Cup Final in a Panthers sweater after the midseason trade:

"Yeah, it's special. You've been around for a while, and you realize how few opportunities you have to be part of something like this.Just enjoying every moment, very grateful for the opportunity. You're right. I didn't expect to be here in the jersey, but I'm very happy."

"It's kind of an odd feeling, you know, extremely excited to go to the finals, but the job is not done, it kinda feels like we ended any other series and still has huge job to do so, we're looking ahead, but definitely excited about the opportunity try to take in this moments for sure," he added.

Matthew Tkachuk, Evan Rodrigues, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett and Anton Lundell scored for the Panthers. Sebastian Aho got two goals and Seth Jarvis added one for the Hurricanes.

Sergei Bobrovsky got 20 saves in the win while Carolina's Frederik Andersen stopped 17 shots in the loss.

With the Eastern Conference championship settled, the Panthers advanced to the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight time.

Brad Marchand and Panthers win 5-3 over Hurricanes

Carolina got the first goal of the night when Sebastian Aho took a turnover and scored on a breakaway at 4:39. Aho then netted his second goal late in the first to make it 2-0.

Florida answered in the second with two goals in 30 seconds — Tkachuk on a power-play tip and Rodrigues finishing a give-and-go with Bennett to tie it 2-2. Anton Lundell then scored on a backhand finish off a faceoff play to give the Panthers a 3-2 lead later in the period.

The Hurricanes leveled the score 3-3 early in the third on a shot from Seth Jarvis before Carter Verhaeghe responded with the go-ahead goal after a slick setup from Barkov.

Sam Bennett scored an empty-netter goal soon after for a 5-3 final score.