内容摘要：, Dallas and the New York Giants have no shortage of bruising defenders ready to hit him.

, Dallas and the New York Giants have no shortage of bruising defenders ready to hit him.

The funny part is that Barkov would hate hearing such praise, and he surely would never say anything like that about himself. He is a most unassuming superstar, someone who doesn’t care about the spotlight, someone who was legitimately surprised when fans recognized him last year at a Florida Atlantic basketball game in Boca Raton — about 20 minutes north of where the Panthers play their home games.But he is Florida’s best player. And he has led the defending Stanley Cup champions back to the title round for a third consecutive season. This year’s matchup is a rematch: Florida is playing Edmonton for the second straight year, after beating the Oilers in seven games last year.

“He’s one of the best in the world at that, if not the best,” Florida forward Sam Reinhart said of Barkov’s play to set up the gamewinner in the East clincher. “He’s got so much strength. Big players make big plays at the biggest moments when you need them, and he’s certainly the leader of this team.”The Florida-Edmonton matchup will be the 11th title-round rematch in the Stanley Cup era and the first since Pittsburgh and Detroit played for the trophy in 2008 and 2009.“The most important step is ahead of us,” goalie Sergei Bobrovsky said.

The Panthers are the ninth franchise in NHL history to make the Stanley Cup Final in at least three consecutive seasons. Barkov became the first Finnish captain to get the honor of having the inaugural hoist of the Cup when Florida won the title last year, and he was there through a lot of lean years for the Panthers. Forget the Cup final; the Panthers couldn’t make the playoffs for much of their history.That seems so long ago now. No team has played more postseason games in the last four years than the Panthers, and there’s at least four more games this season left to go.

“I think it was a long time coming,” Barkov said. “Obviously, there’s been a lot of work put in by this organization to become better and reach the level where we want to win Stanley Cups, we want to compete for Stanley Cups every single year. There are 31 other teams in the league and it’s hard every single year. They want to do that too, so it’s not easy. But we’ve managed to do it three years in a row, which is, I think, an incredible achievement so far.”

Aaron Ekblad is in his 11th season as a Panther — one behind Barkov — and he remembers those tough times. Florida once missed the playoffs by a point during their tenure; some years, they missed by five or six wins. They weren’t terrible. They just weren’t that good.For the year, the company now expects sales between $41.1 billion and $41.9 billion, down from $41.4 billion to $42.2 billion.

Analysts expected $41.38 billion, according to FactSet.Naples may be famous for its pizza, but the meatballs are just as deserving of worldwide acclaim. Massive orbs of ground beef are set in a shallow pool of ragù, red and glistening, and are served as often alongside pasta as without. Despite their impressive size, they’re light and ultra-tender, thanks to a high ratio of bread to meat.

In this recipe from our latest cookbook, “” we use Japanese panko breadcrumbs, which have a neutral flavor and a light and fluffy but coarse texture. It greatly streamlines the meatball-making process, eliminating the need to remove the crusts from fresh bread, soak it in water and squeeze out excess moisture. Panko only needs to be moistened with water and it’s ready to use.