Carter Verhaeghe broke a tie off a feed from Aleksander Barkov with 7:39 left and the defending champion Florida Panthers advanced to their third straight Stanley Cup Final, beating the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 on Wednesday night in Game 5 at Raleigh, N.C.

The Panthers beat the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final for the second time in three seasons. The Panthers will face the winner of the Western final between Dallas and Edmonton, with the Oilers up 3-1 in that best-of-seven series to put them within a win of a rematch with Florida for the Cup.

Sam Bennett added an empty-net goal with 54 seconds left by skating down a loose puck straight out of the penalty box after Florida had held up against a critical late power play for the Hurricanes.

That capped a wild night that saw the Hurricanes jump to a 2-0 lead, then Florida answer with three second-period goals, only to see Carolina’s Seth Jarvis beat Sergei Bobrovsky midway through the third to tie it at 3.

Oilers look to put away struggling stars

The Dallas Stars are back home and on the verge of their season ending in the Western Conference final for the third year in a row — especially if they don’t start scoring goals again like they did all season.

“We’re generating chances, and it just hasn’t been going in,” Stars forward Sam Steel said Wednesday. “I don’t think we can focus on that too much, or complain about how pucks aren’t going in. We know the recipe and we’re looking to get back to it.”

Dallas is back home for Game 5 tonight, down 3-1 to the Edmonton Oilers after scoring only two goals while losing three consecutive games.

For Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and the Oilers, this is their first chance at a series clincher. They are trying to advance to their second Stanley Cup Final in a row, and again eliminate the Stars on the way.

Take out their five-goal outburst in the third period for a 6-3 win in Game 1, with three power-play goals in a 5 1/2-minute span, and the Stars have been outscored 16-3 the other 11 periods in this series.

This is the same Dallas team that ranked third in the NHL and matched Winnipeg atop the West with 3.35 goals a game in the regular season, and was shut out only once.

The Stars have four shutout losses this postseason, including in Game 2 their last time at home.