Tempers flared and boiled over in Game 2 at Amalie Arena. The Panthers took a strong 2-0 series lead on the back of stellar defense that suffocated the Lightning’s offense. Florida fans, while happy with the win, are far more concerned with the status of Barkov, who took a dirty hit from Hagel in the third period, resulting in a 5-minute major roughing penalty. Barkov was down on the ice for a while and was looked at by medical staff. He eventually skated off the ice under his own power, but he went straight down the tunnel and did not return to the game. HC Paul Maurice didn’t have an update on Barkov in his post-game press conference. Bennett was interviewed after the game and said, “It’s tough to see. Anytime your best player goes down like that, it’s tough to lose him. He does everything for this squad, and we care about him a lot.” Nate Schmidt had another outstanding performance, two excellent goalies dueled it out, and Florida’s defense put on a masterclass on the ice, leading to a frustrated Tampa Bay team and plenty of penalty minutes to go around.
Florida Leading Goal Scorer: Nate Schmidt
On probably no one’s bingo card was Nate Schmidt being the Cats’ leading goal scorer after two games. However, his offense has been a very pleasant surprise in the two games in Tampa, and two of his three goals stand as game winners. As of the end of the Panthers’ game, Schmidt is tied in playoff goals with Adrian Kempe and Nathan MacKinnon. His three goals also tie him with Montour (2024 playoffs) for the third-most postseason goals in franchise history; Forsling is second with 4 (2024 playoffs), and Montour tops the list with 8 (2023 playoffs). Schmidt became the first defenseman to score three goals in the first two games of a playoff series since Nicklas Lidstrom in 1995. Schmidt logged a solid 14:48 TOI with 3 SOG, 1 hit, and a team high 3 blocked shots. He was solid on the PK as well, which saw plenty of ice time, although he logged the least amount of PK time of the defenseman at just 1:28. Schmidt did put in a good 2:39 time on the PP. Barkov won the offensive zone draw, and then Reinhart picked up the puck. Samson made a crisp pass cross-ice to an open Schmidt for the one-timer that found the back of the net for the 1-0 lead just 4:15 into the first period. Florida rode that single-goal lead all the way till Bennett scored the empty-netter with 3 seconds left on the clock for the 2-0 win. Bill Zito once again did a fantastic job finding a player who fits into Florida’s system seamlessly. Florida may not get the production of a Brandon Montour out of Schmidt, but he’s done a good job filling in OEL’s role in the lineup on the bottom pair.
Goalie Battle Round 2:
The Battle of Florida last season gave fans the save heard ‘round the world, The Bobbery. This year, it gave a Bobrovsky shutout. However, the one thing both games had in common was Bobrovsky and Vasilevskiy locked in and dueling things out in net. As expected, Vasilevskiy had a bounce-back game for the Lightning, but Bob was rock solid for the Panthers, and the Florida defense did the rest to make Bob’s job as easy as possible. Bob stopped all 19 Tampa shots. Through two games, Bob has a .951 SV%, 1.00 GAA, and 1 shutout. I’m always happy when this team proves me right. I said in my series preview that I thought the Panthers could get a shutout or two in the postseason, and they wasted no time getting that done. Bob’s been in playoff form since January, and now the team in front of him is too. It was a more low-event game scoring-wise, but Bob still made a handful of fantastic saves on dangerous Tampa chances, especially on the power play.
Tempers Flare, Penalties Ensue:
If you watched Game 2 of the Florida/Boston series last year, this match had a lot of similar qualities to it. The Lightning came out more physical this time and held a 34-38 edge in hits, but the Cats held a massive advantage in blocked shots with a 20-6 edge. Neither team did a good job of staying out of the box with a combined 31 PIMs split into five power plays for Tampa and 3 for Florida; however, one of the Cats’ was a 5-minute major. Marchand and Forsling both took penalties in the first period for slashing and holding the stick, respectively. The second period is when the fireworks started with 7 penalties being handed out to Guentzel (7:14, slashing), Verhaeghe (9:09, boarding), Cirelli (9:09, roughing), Marchand (9:09, roughing), Guentzel (19:10 roughing), Tkachuk (20:00, unsportsmanlike conduct), and Cirelli (20:00, unsportsmanlike conduct). Verhaeghe’s hit set off the first big fight of the night in the Tampa zone. Florida had its second power play unit out, and all the Panthers were quick to jump in to defend their teammate, especially Marchand, who also picked up a penalty. The other big fight in the period happened after the period buzzer, and unsurprisingly, Tkachuk was in the middle of it, going at Cirelli. Both teams were on the ice for an unusual amount of time as the refs struggled to get the scrum under control. The third period had penalties given to Kulikov (1:35, slashing), Samoskevich (8:33, roughing), Hagel (9:51, interference (maj)), Lundell (10:22, roughing), and Point (10:22, roughing). Florida’s defense spent all night working hard against Tampa and frustrated them to the point that the Lightning were lashing out. Despite giving up 5 power plays, the Cats went a perfect 5/5 on the PK. Lundell said, “We were aggressive [on the puck], but we also have Bob.” HC Paul Maurice spoke after Game 1 about how the Panthers’ game sacrifices a bit of offense to ensure they’re strong defensively, and that was on full display against Tampa in Game 2. Florida takes a 2-0 series lead into Sunrise, where they’ll get Aaron Ekblad back and a full d-core for the first time since early March.
ITR 35: Round One – Inside The Rink
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