It was a gritty and ugly game for the Florida Panthers Wednesday night in their first home match of the new year. The Cats were celebrating their 30th anniversary at home with a special patch added to the jerseys and a 90’s themed night for the fans. The LA Kings were coming into Amerant Bank Arena on a six- game losing streak in stark contrast to Florida’s eight-game win streak. The match was a defensive battle as two of the best defenses in the NHL clashed. Offensive zone time was hard to come by for the Panthers, but two players came up big when it mattered, Reinhart and Tkachuk.
Defensive Battle:
This game saw a fight between the 2nd & 3rd best defenses in the NHL, as well as two of the best top lines. Barkov’s line is currently 1st in the NHL in goal differential, sitting at a +23, while LA’s top line had a +15 coming in. But it was the defense that was defining this game as LA came in with the strategy to disrupt Florida’s defense by entering the zone up the middle to split the defenders. The Panthers would make the adjustment and clog up the center of the ice to force the LA forwards to play along the boards. There were plenty of board battles throughout the night, some of them being longer than average as players fought for control. LA held the advantage in blocked shots 17-15. However, Florida had the advantage in hits, 24-19, and controlled the faceoff dot, 43-31. There were equal penalty minutes between the teams at eight a piece with strong PK performances on both sides; Florida killed two penalties without allowing a single shot on goal.
Offensive Zone Struggle:
Florida spent a lot of time in their own zone defending against the LA pressure. They struggled through all 60 minutes to get time in the offensive zone even though they had 41 shots on goal to LA’s 33. When some time was gained in the Kings’ zone, it felt like watching the Montreal game all over again, with shots going wide or getting blocked. In the back half of the 3rd period, a stretch that has been a strength as of late, Montour had a wide-open net to shoot at when Talbot ended up face down on the ice and had his shot ring off the post. That just felt like a defining moment of how the entire game had gone, great scoring chances not capitalized upon missing by inches. Sam Bennett would give Florida some life when he was able to tie the score up in the second period. His goal led to some good shifts from the Panthers, and they looked more like the team we’d seen during the four-game road trip.
Tkachuk and Reinhart Heroics:
In a game that felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong, Tkachuk and Reinhart pulled through to bring Florida its 9th straight win. The Cats were down 2-1 late in the 3rd period; Coach Paul Maurice decided to pull Bobrovsky for the man advantage, and not even 20 seconds later, a shot from Verhaeghe got tipped in by Tkachuk to tie the game at two a piece. Tkachuk has now scored in every single game since the new year and is red hot for this team, which makes the 2nd line even more dangerous with Verhaeghe as the other winger. Having sent the game into OT, it looked like LA would take it after about two minutes of three-on-three, but the shot hit the post, and Florida answered with its own shot that hit a post. Kempe took a cross-checking penalty with 1:23 left in the three-on-three play; Florida would get one more shot with its PP, which hadn’t been successful so far on the night. A shootout was looming as the Cats tried to utilize the man advantage with the seconds ticking down. Reinhart would be the one to score and give Florida its 9th straight win with only .7 left on the clock. Amerant Bank Arena exploded with cheers, rats rained down on the ice, and Sam Reinhart pulled off a goal in a situation that looked very similar to Tkachuk’s game-winning goal in the quadruple OT during the playoffs last season. Florida is back in action on Saturday at home, welcoming in the New Jersey Devils.
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