I know Panther fans online are frustrated and worried about the team at the moment. It feels like the Cats are stumbling their way into the playoffs. There are certainly things to be frustrated about, but Florida’s ability to play in the playoffs shouldn’t be part of it. It’s been discussed to death about the injuries and the shorthandedness of the Cats’ roster, and I’m not interested in doing so again after this match. There are still positives to take away from the match despite the result. You can argue that they should’ve won the game against Montreal, and they should have, but the puck luck isn’t there right now. They played Toronto extremely close and outplayed Ottawa in a lot of ways, just unfortunately not on the scoreboard. My biggest overall takeaway is that the Panthers are playing the right way to be successful in the postseason,n but not getting the results they deserve at the moment, which may not be all that surprising when there’s roughly 30M dollars worth of players out of the lineup right now.
Costly Start:
The Cats got chances early in the match, with an especially good one from Sam Bennett in the opening 15 seconds. Florida rolled out new lines with no Barkov and no Sturm in the lineup. The top line sported Boqvist-Bennett-Reinhart, the second line had Luostarinen-Lundell-Marchand, the third line contained Verhaeghe-Rodrigues-Samoskevich, and the fourth line looked familiar with Greer-Nosek-Gadjovich. Even the defensive pairings got mixed as Schmidt played with Forsling while Jones was back with Mikkola. Despite holding zone time for most of the period, a turnover and a slow start for the PK gave Ottawa a 0-2 lead out of the first period. A defensive zone turnover by the net allowed Pinto to go behind the net and make a crisp pass to Sanderson, who ripped a shot top shelf and opened the scoring with 11:21 to play in the first period. A poor penalty from Verhaeghe gave Ottawa their first power play of the game, where Batherson tipped in a shot from Cozens for the 0-2 lead just three minutes later. Florida held the advantage in SOG 14-7, Hits 18-9, and faceoffs 10-7.
Stronger Second Period:
Florida looked better in the second period, where they dominated much of the play. The Panthers outshot attempted Ottawa 48-26 with a 25-12 SOG advantage and extended their hits advantage to 39-18. The biggest tide-turner was the Senators winning in the faceoff dot with a 15-19 advantage. Not particularly surprising given that the Cats were down two centers. Lundell’s stepped up in Barkov’s absence and has won 11 faceoffs in his last three games, including the Ottawa one. He also had an impressive 71 FO% coming into the Saturday afternoon match. There were some really nice grade-A scoring chances for the Panthers, but they just couldn’t get them to go against Forsberg. At one point, it looked like Florida had tied the game, but the goal was waived off for being touched by a high stick by Rodrigues. It was the right call, especially after seeing the video review. No score in the second period, but the Cats had six high-danger chances and held Ottawa to just two. Florida had two odd-man rushes with no rush chances for the Sens, and the Panthers had seven chances off of turnovers to Ottawa’s three. All good things for Florida, and it indicates that they’re playing the right way for the postseason.
Feisty Finish:
There may have been no Tkachuks on the ice, but that didn’t stop tempers from boiling over in the third period. It started late in the second when Verhaeghe was called for boarding, but then really escalated late in the third. Mikkola and Greig both went off for unsportsmanlike conduct: Mikkola for shooting a puck in the net after the whistle, and Greig for the ensuing scrum. Balinskis took a roughing penalty with just over two minutes to play, and then chaos erupted about a minute later. Gadjovich, Stutzle, and Greer were all thrown out with 10-minute misconducts, while A.J. was given the extra two-minute roughing call. Not an unsurprising end to the game, given the heated games these two teams have played in recent years, especially when the Tkachuk brothers are both on the ice. Despite the result, there was positivity in the post-game interviews. HC Paul Maurice said, “There would be a big chunk of our game that looks the way it’s supposed to look. I thought our gap was really good. The hunt backs were good. We were pretty direct to their net. We made a handful of small mistakes 5-on-5, but not many to worry about.” Gadjovich said in his, “It’s definitely frustrating. We want to get the wins at this point of the year, but our product is right. I think our game is good. We’re playing the right way. We’re doing what we want to do, just not getting the final outcome that we want.” Luostarinen-Lundell-Marchand could be a good line together, as their first game was promising. At 5-on-5, they led 15-2 in shot attempts, were 6-0 in SOG, and had a 98.2 xGF%. HC Paul Maurice was happy with how they looked as a line, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that be a playoff line when Tkachuk is back healthy and keep Samoskevich-Bennett-Tkachuk together.
ITR 45: Everything Is Happening – Inside The Rink
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