The Panthers returned home from their long road trip to New York and Finland bringing with them a five-game win streak. Florida took on the Nashville Predators and Philadelphia Flyers and walked away with two more wins. It was a tale of two games: the game against the Predators was filled to the brim with penalties, while the match with Philly had four penalties in total. The Cats easily handled the Preds with an overwhelming offense that contributed to all the penalties, as frustrated teams are more likely to lose their tempers. Philly played Florida a lot more closely and sent things all the way to a shootout, but the Panthers came out on top. Currently, Florida sits atop the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference, and they’re tied for second place in the NHL with Minnesota.
Nashville Predators:
Bobrovsky got the start for Florida, while Wedgewood was in the net for the Predators. HC Paul Maurice ran the lines that had been working, meaning that Adam Boqvist and Jonah Gadjovich were the healthy scratches. Not that Adam has done poorly, more that Nate Schmidt worked his way into the lineup, and there’s no reason to bring him or Balinskis out at the moment. Gadjovhich has been recovering from issues with his back and working hard with the staff to be available. It didn’t take long for Florida to get on the board, Sam Reinhart opened the scoring on a lovely wraparound shot. Reinhart and Barkov created the chance, with Reinhart pulling Wedgewood to the right and opening up his wraparound chance; though the puck did hit Wedgewood’s pad, the pad was behind the goal line, and the Cats took a 1-0 lead just three, and a half minutes into the period; Mikkola got the secondary assist tying his career-high three straight games with assists. Tkachuk doubled the lead two minutes later when he used Verhaeghe as a decoy for the defense and scored on his own rebound shot; His initial shot hit the defender and then came right back to him. Things settled down after that and no more goals would be scored for the rest of the period, however, the penalties did start. Three penalties in the first period so nothing too serious, Evangelista (12:41, high sticking), Luostarinen (15:42, tripping), and Schenn (19:54, hooking) were the offenders. All the penalties would be killed off for the period.
Just after the Schenn penalty expired, Evan Rodrigues put a shot in bar-down for the 3-0 lead. It was nearly a powerplay goal, but the puck went in right after it was over. The second unit created some good pressure, leading to the Rodrigues goal. Bennett and Lundell got the assists. Rodrigues now has three goals in three games, and it looks like he’s finding a scoring groove. Carter Verhaeghe added on to the lead with a powerplay goal. Quick and accurate passing on the top unit got the puck to Verhaeghe at the front of the net, where he was able to settle a bouncing puck and flip a backhander over Wedgewood for the 4-0 lead. Just over two minutes later, Stamkos finally got Nashville on the board off one of his patented one-timers and cut the lead to 4-1. The shot hit the crossbar and went in behind Bob. As the clock was winding down, Florida entered the offensive zone with speed on a 2-on-1 chance for Verhaeghe and Barkov. A great pass to Verhaeghe from Barkov gave Carter enough time to make a shot that went in bar-down for the 5-1 lead with just 28 seconds on the clock. The penalties started to pile up in the second period, with Stamkos (7:54, hooking), Josi (9:49, tripping), and McCarron (14:06, tripping) picking up penalties for the Preds while Forsling (13:09, tripping) got called for the only Florida penalty.
The third period was nothing but a carousel to the penalty box, and 5v5 was virtually non-existent. A massive fight at the end of the second period set off by Florida taking exception to actions made by L’Heureux saw Nosek (0:00, roughing), Greer (0:00, rouging), L’Heureux (0:00, rouging), and McCarron (0:00, roughing) all start the final period in the box. If the teams needed PK practice they got plenty of it in the third period. Schenn (1:07, roughing) and Bennett (1:07, holding) both got sent to the box after another small scrum, making things 4v4. However, Mikkola (2:21, slashing) turned it into a 4v3 with his penalty. Bobrovsky had a solid game, although he didn’t see much action, with Nashville only getting 18 SOG. He made some nice saves down the stretch, including a great poke check when he went out to challenge a Preds player. The few minutes of 5v5 were rather uneventful, and then Schenn (6:30, interference) picked up his third penalty of the night. But he was quickly followed by Balinskis (6:47, holding) for more 4v4 action. That got killed off, as did the quick Nashville powerplay of ten seconds. Del Gaizo (10:17, holding the stick) was the next one to pick up an infraction. HC Paul Maurice opted to throw out his power play unit, which consisted of his fourth-line players, in an attempt to even out the ice time. The move paid off as Mackie Samoskevich made a pass to Schmidt, who got the puck to Nosek, who then put it into the back of the net for his first career power-play goal. It was an odd goal as Schmidt’s pass hit both of Nosek’s skates and then went in for the goal and the 6-1 lead. Parssinen scored a response goal to cut the lead back to four. Marchessault (12:42, slashing) and Mikkola (12:42, cross-checking) took offsetting penalties for more 4v4 action that neither side capitalized on. Luostarinen (15:27, cross-checking) took the final penalty of the game, which the Panthers’ PK killed off. Florida got some pressure in the final minutes and cruised to a 6-2 decisive victory. Balinskis, with his first career multi-point game, took home third star honors, Barkov, with a three-point game, got second star honors, and Verhaeghe, with a two-goal game, got first star honors.
Philadelphia Flyers:
Bobrovsky once again got the start on Saturday against Philly, and Gadjovich drew in over Samoskevich. HC Paul Maurice said he wanted Gadjovich for the heavy game that it was going to be and that Samoskevich was ahead of the development timeline. With that being the only lineup change, the fourth line was Greer-Nosek-Gadjovich, and they started the game with Schmidt-Balinskis as the opening d-pairing. The Panthers were under pressure early in the period, but Ersson and the defense made the necessary stops or blocked shots. Philly broke the ice with Farabee putting in a rebound that went right to him, and with Bob pulled far to the side, he had a wide-open net to shoot on. Rodrigues (6:38, tripping) had the first penalty of the night, with some incredible saves by Bob and strong penalty killing, the Cats killed it off. Bobrovsky made a huge save on a Philly breakaway chance, earning himself Bob-by chants from the crowd. Florida would get a chance with the man advantage when Seeler (13:09, interference) was sent to the box. Aggressive penalty killing by the Flyers only allowed shots from Barkov and Tkachuk and not much else was going on the power play. The Cats got more pressure towards the end of the period, and it felt like a goal was coming, but alas, the Flyers left the period with a 0-1 lead.
Florida stuck to their game and was rewarded in the second period. Nate Schmidt tied the game off a heavy slapshot near the blue line. He’d just come off the bench to join the play when the Rodrigues pass found him, and his shot went straight in the back of the net, with Barkov getting the secondary assist. Florida held possession and generated pressure following the goal. In a game where the forwards were struggling to solve Ersson, the defense stepped up, and Kulikov gave the Panthers the lead. Kulikov jumped up in the play, and some give-and-go passing eventually found him in the slot where he would shoot to score. Philly took a timeout and then challenged that the puck had hit the protective netting so the play should’ve been whistled dead. The video evidence shown on TV was inconclusive and after a lengthy discussion, the refs ruled it a good goal. The Flyers killed off the following power play. Florida’s third line put in good shifts in the offensive zone, but a delayed penalty allowed Richard to shoot from the blue line through traffic and tie the game with seven minutes left in the period. A strong response from Florida had Mikkola making two great plays to set up Verhaeghe for the cross-ice pass to an open Sam Bennett for the one-timer at a partially open cage. The goal was Bennett’s 300th career point and gave the Panthers a 3-2 lead, which they defended till the end of the period. During the final minutes, the Flyers were under good pressure, but Bobrovsky was there to make great saves and hold the lead.
The third period was mostly a goalie fight, with both Bobrovsky and Ersson making fantastic saves. Florida gave up more than their fair share of breakaways over the course of the game; sometimes Philly got shots that Bob saved, and for others, players like Forsling made it back to stop a shot from getting off. Stat-wise, the Flyers dominated the stat sheet except for in faceoffs where Florida held the 34-27 advantage. Things went mostly back and forth in the final period, with both teams getting pressure, but it would be an odd play and a shot from Hathaway that tied the game 3-3. Hathaway used speed to get behind some of the Florida defense, but his shot actually hit Balinskis before it eeked in under Bob’s pads for a goal. The goal came just after a stint of 4v4 with Mikkola (8:08, unsportsmanlike conduct) and Konecny (8:08, unsportsmanlike conduct) got offsetting penalties for going at each other before the puck even dropped for a faceoff. The back half of the period had each team getting their chances, but it was a goalie fight at that point, and neither Bobrovsky nor Ersson were letting in another goal.
Regulation wasn’t enough time, and so to overtime it went. The Cats opted not to play any defensemen during the 3v3, which has its positives and negatives. Philly and Florida each had big opportunities to close the game out, but the goalie fight was still in full swing as Bob and Ersson made incredible saves. This game was going to a shootout, and Barkov kicked it off with a beautiful one-handed goal that went on Ersson’s glove side. Bobrovsky stopped Konecny’s wrister shot. In round, Reinhart was stopped while Tippett scored to even things up. In round three, Lundell and Brink both had their shots saved. Tkachuk and Couturier couldn’t solve the goalies in round four. Evan Rodrigues moved in with speed and was able to fake out Ersson enough to score on a top-shelf shot. Bobrovsky made the ensuing save on Frost to seal the win for the Cats. Bob earned third star honors, Bennet was the second star, and a fantastic game from Rodrigues earned him the first star.
This week, Florida continues its homestead with two games against New Jersey and one against Winnipeg.
