Taylor Hall shrugs off Panthers' dominance in Game 2 citing extensive 7-game series against Maple Leafs 

Taylor Hall was left feeling unimpressed by the Florida Panthers' early lead in the series. After a 5-0 loss in Game 2, he said the Carolina Hurricanes have not played their best. The Panthers now lead the Eastern Conference finals 2-0. Game 3 will be in Sunrise, Florida, at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday.

NHL insider Greg Wyshynski posted Hall’s comments on X/Twitter. Hall pointed out that Florida needed seven games to beat Toronto in the previous round. He said every team has areas to exploit, and Florida is no different.

“I mean, they just went seven games against the [Maple] Leafs, right? They're not a perfect hockey team and we know that there are areas to exploit, like any team," Hall said.

Florida’s Game 2 win was completely one-sided. Sam Bennett had two goals and one assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 17 saves for his third shutout of the playoffs. Matthew Tkachuk also had a goal and an assist. Forward Carter Verhaeghe had three assists in the game, and Aaron Ekblad and Evan Rodrigues added two assists each.

The Panthers scored three goals in the first period, with their first goal coming as early as 17 seconds into the second minute of the first period. Tkachuk set up the first goal and scored the second. Bennett scored on the power play to make it 3-0, and he added another goal in the second period. Aleksander Barkov scored a power-play goal to make it 5-0 in the third.

Taylor Hall talks about Carolina Hurricanes' loss in Game 1 and 2

The Carolina Hurricanes defeated both New Jersey Devils (Round 1) and Washington Capitals (Round 2) in five games. They have lost only two games in the previous two series in this year's playoffs.

Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall said poor starts have hurt the team. He said it is hard to judge the series until the Hurricanes play close to their best.

"We didn’t play up to our capability in the first two games," Hall said via NHL.com. "Obviously, the start of the games is what put us in holes. They do a lot of things well all around the ice, so it’s going to be difficult for us, but we can’t really evaluate much until we can say we’ve played close to our best."

Frederik Andersen allowed four goals before being pulled. Pyotr Kochetkov finished the game for Carolina. Florida is defending their Stanley Cup title from last season.