Welcome to South Florida, Brad Marchand. After nearly three weeks of waiting, Marchand finally made his Panther debut. It was the trade that stunned the hockey world in the final hour of the trade deadline. Now that he’s finally recovered from his injury, it was worth the wait to see Marchand on the ice with the Cats. A hard-fought win from Florida over the Utah Hockey Club, where neither team gave up much defensively, Sam Bennett continues to help fill in the hole left by Matthew Tkachuk. Despite not seeing much action, Bobrovsky was once again stellar in the net, and the Panthers have reclaimed first place in the division following the Leafs’ loss in the shootout to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
Welcome to The Rat Pack:
In the weeks of uncharted territory, Brad Marchand spoke highly of his new teammates to the media following the Cats’ win and how welcoming they’ve been, “It’s such a great group to come into, everybody’s so welcoming and really really good group in the room which made the transition very easy.” HC Paul Maurice put Brad on the second line with Mackie Samoskevich and Sam Bennett, initially having him play right wing, but they eventually swapped him and Mackie, which Maurice noted made the line faster. Although he didn’t get too much power-play time due to the first unit controlling the o-zone for the majority of the time during their opportunities, Marchand adds depth to the penalty killing as well, which takes some of the pressure off of Barkov and Reinhart, though they didn’t utilize him there in his debut. If Marchand was ever going to leave the Bruins, there isn’t a more perfect fit for his style of play than the Panthers, and the possibility of having a Marchand-Bennett-Tkachuk line has fans dubbing it The Rat Pack on social media. Brad was second on the team in SOG at 4, and had 2 hits with 16:30 TOI. The biggest highlight of the night was Marchand setting up the game winner in overtime and notching his first point as a Panther. Brad spoke about the differences in schedule and how he’s getting more comfortable every day with the group. He continued, talking about how special the group is in the Panther locker room and how great the fans were cheering for him. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Cats had a 10-1 edge in SOG and a 10-5 edge in scoring chances when Marchand was on the ice.
Stepping Up:
Sam Bennett has been an integral part of the Panthers, especially during their playoff runs. His style of game suits the playoffs perfectly, and currently it’s translating over into regular season success as he’s playing a bigger role on the team with Tkachuk out of the lineup. He’s a pending UFA at the end of the season, but reports have said that extension talks resumed last week between the two camps, and Bennett is on track for a career season. His next assist will set a new career high, as will his next point, and he’s only three goals off his career best of 28, which he scored during the ‘21-’22 season with the Panthers. Don’t be surprised if HC Paul Maurice jokes about him having a bad attitude if he’s asked about Sam’s status during the playoffs, it’s the exact same thing he did last season when he was asked about Reinhart. Bennett had a game-high 6 SOG while racking up seven minutes in PP time; his total TOI was 21:36. Bennett’s impact on the game is huge, and the chemistry he’s developed with Samoskevich has been downright magical at times. If the Panthers are able to extend him, the Cats could very well have a second Barkov-Reinhart-esque pairing in their lineup. Not in terms of exactly how Reinhart and Barkov do things, but a pairing that’s just magic on ice together and can create plays from seemingly nothing. Bennett put himself in great positions for both his goals. His first goal came on the power-play where he was on the receiving end of a beautiful pass through Sergachev’s stick from Barkov that he tapped in to break the ice. For his OT winner, the play started in the Cats’ end with Forsling perfectly picking off a pass and transitioned into a rush chance. His shot deflected behind the net where Marchand picked it up and passed to Bennett, who then waited just a second longer and put the back-hander into the net to call game for the 2-1 win.
Playoff-Style Defense:
Although they’re still shorthanded on the back end, the entire team is stepping up to play playoff defense. The Panthers limited Utah to just 14 SOG, but that’s not the impressive part of that stat. Fans have seen them do that to teams in the playoffs before. The impressive part is that Florida allowed Utah’s last SOG at 12:13 in the third period; they gave up no SOG during the late-period PP nor any during overtime with no Ekblad and no Kulikov. That’s the type of defense that won the Panthers Cup last season. Per the Natural Stat Trick impact card, every single player’s team defense was above average, with only a couple of players being slightly negative for individual defense. Mikkola topped the impact card for above-average team defense with Forsling, Schmidt, and Jones closely behind him. Forsling and Jones both had the highest above-average PK with the penalty kill going a perfect 4/4 on the night. Bobrovsky’s been on a tear since January 21st, sporting a 12-4-0 record going into the Utah match with a 1.70 GAA, .931 SV%, and four shutouts. Following the game with Utah, he’s only allowed 24 goals in 14 games, and he’s one shutout away from his 50th career shutout. While Bob didn’t see much action he still needed to make three or four big saves for the Cats which he did and ended the night with a .929 SV%, stopping 13 of 14 shots; the only Utah goal came during a rush chance on the 4v4 where a cross-ice pass found Durzi and went in. There’s still a tough stretch ahead with three sets of back-to-backs in April, including four games in six days on two back-to-backs to start the month. Bob will be big for the team, as will Vitek Vanecek.
ITR 32: The Final Countdown – Inside The Rink
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