FLORIDA'S SUNSHINE BOYS CONTINUE LONG-SHOT RUN : FLORIDA 3, PITTSBURGH 1.

Byline: Alan Robinson Associated Press 

One Lemieux down, one to go for the Florida Panthers, who can't stop living hockey's impossible dream.

Tom Fitzgerald and Mike Hough, nondescript players on a mostly starless team, scored key goals and Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr again didn't, and the Panthers stunned the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-1 Saturday night in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals.

Reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in only their third season, the Panthers meet the Claude Lemieux-led Colorado Avalanche in one of the least-probable Cup finals in NHL history beginning Tuesday night in Denver.

``Our game plan was to fly west, not to go south, and we're flying west,'' said Panthers coach Doug MacLean, who designed the suffocating defense that so confused Lemieux and Jagr. ``We were 500-to-1 odds to make the Stanley Cup, and I didn't take that bet myself. I thought we'd make the playoffs, and that was about it.''

Instead, the 1980 USA Olympic team no longer holds the sole copyright for miracles on ice.

``Do you believe in miracles? I do,'' Panthers owner Wayne Huizenga said. ``This is unbelievable, and I mean unbelievable.''

It will now be the rats against the rookies - the Panthers' rat-throwing fans against a franchise that relocated from Quebec to Colorado only last summer.

To get there, the Panthers won Game 7 the same way they dominated the series. They confused the NHL's two leading scorers and got big goals themselves from unlikely sources.

``We were the longest of long shots, but we're loving it right now,'' goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck said.

Vanbiesbrouck, a Penguins playoff whipping boy with an 0-5 record against them until this series, made 39 saves and will almost certainly be the MVP should the Panthers again defy history by winning the Cup.

``Vanbiesbrouck has been the difference in every series,'' Penguins coach Eddie Johnston said. ``I don't think I've ever seen anybody in a zone the way the Beezer has been in these playoffs, not only in our playoffs, but against Boston and Philadelphia. He has been the difference in every series.''

Lemieux and Jagr came into the series each having scored 10 playoff goals. They scored but one each and went scoreless in the final five games after never going more than two games during the season without scoring.

``I would never have believed that,'' Johnston said. ``Jagr had four or five breakaways the last three or four games, and you can almost always go to the bank that he'll bury one or two of those.''

``It was the best defense I've ever played against,'' Lemieux said. ``You'd beat one guy, and there were two others there.''

Hough provided a huge motivational lift by scoring the opening goal at 13:13 - a time that proved an ominous omen for the Penguins, who have lost three of their last five Game 7s at home.

``We had them down 3-2, and to not bury them . . . it's going to be a long summer,'' the Penguins' Joe Dziedzic said.

Fitzgerald answered Petr Nedved's tying goal in the third period by powering a seemingly harmless slap shot from just inside the blue line past goaltender Tom Barrasso at 6:18 of the third.

Fitzgerald has scored five of six career playoff goals against Pittsburgh, with two coming as the New York Islanders rallied from a 3-2 deficit - just like the Panthers - to upset the Penguins in 1993.

``We have a team rule that we're not allowed to go blue line to blue line,'' Fitzgerald said. ``I kind of lost my head for a minute. I got to the blue line and just put a shot on net. It went off (Neil) Wilkinson's stick and went through the net. I couldn't believe it went in.''

Neither could the Penguins.

``But Florida deserves to be where they are,'' Johnston said. ``We couldn't get a pea by Vanbiesbrouck.''

The Panthers are only the 14th team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-2, with four doing it against Pittsburgh.

STANLEY CUP FINALS Colorado vs. Florida Best-of-seven

Game 1: Tuesday, at Colorado, 5 p.m. (FOX)

Game 2: Thursday, at Colorado, 5 p.m. (ESPN)

Game 3: Saturday, at Florida, 5 p.m. (FOX)

Game 4: June 10, at Florida, 5 p.m. (ESPN)

Game 5-x: June 13, at Colorado, 5 p.m. (ESPN)

Game 6-x: June 15, at Florida, 5 p.m. (ESPN)

Game 7-x: June 17, at Colorado, 5 p.m. (FOX)

x-if necessary

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: Florida's Dave Lowry (10) and Pittsburgh's Fran cois Leroux mix it up in front of Penguins goalie Tom Barrasso in the second period.

Associated Press

Box: STANLEY CUP FINALS (see text)