Florida turned the tide on their road trip with a win over the Bruins. The Panthers are out Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk at the moment, with Tkachuk out for at least a week with illness. HC Paul Maurice rolled out an interesting 11-7 with Balinskis taking shifts on the fourth line as a forward instead of only playing defense, giving them four full forward lines and full defensive pairings. The first period was a rinse-and-repeat from the first period of the opening night game in Sunrise. In a game without the majority of the leadership, Sam Reinhart and Anton Lundell stepped to make plays for the Panthers and lead the team to their second win. Stout defense defended the lead in the third period with great saves from Bobrovsky.
Intense Rivalry:
In what is becoming one of the best rivalries in hockey, Florida and Boston squared off again in the second of four meetings this season. Just like the start of the last meeting, the first period was peppered with penalties, fighting, and general nastiness. There were 36 minutes in penalties in just the first period, and the final total was 40 minutes between the two teams. A controversial hit from AJ Greer had the Florida fans saying the hit was fine and Boston fans yelling for a penalty. The refs didn’t call a penalty, and that decision, whether right or wrong, set things off for the rest of the period. There were retaliatory hits and anger from both sides. In consecutive games against Boston, Greer nabbed a fighting penalty. This time, he was fighting Zacha. Florida got four power plays in just the opening period and converted on one. The power play is still a work in progress, but at least it’s slowly starting to get better. The Panthers have won five straight games at TD Garden during the playoffs, so their win today wasn’t too much of a surprise. There’s no love lost between the teams, and they don’t meet again until the new year. There is plenty of time for the rivalry to simmer, and it will likely boil over when they meet again.
Samson Reinhart and Anton Lundell:
In a team missing leadership, Reinhart and Lundell stepped up with big days for the team. Both players scored two goals, Lundell with two five-on-five goals, and Reinhart getting it done on special teams. Sam was an absolute menace on special teams last season and it looks like he hasn’t missed a beat this year, all three of his goals have come on special teams. Lundell was great in the faceoff dot as well, going 9/13. Reinhart said about Lundell, “He’s just elevated his intensity, his compete level. He’s coming out with the puck almost every time.” These types of performances are important for confidence building as the season goes along and for, hopefully, another deep playoff run at the end of the year. With leadership coming from big pieces of the lineup, the Cats got back to their winning ways going into the second half of a back-to-back. On the team’s performance, Bobrovsky said, “The big guys played big. That’s important. The young guys played their role, too. It’s the beginning of the season, but those points are so important for us.”
Stout Defense Returns:
The Bruins made a strong push in the third period to try and tie the game up, including a long stint of almost three minutes in the Panthers zone. That led to Schmidt having a nearly three-minute shift, Ekblad was on the ice for 2:13, and Jesper Boqvist was on the ice for 2 minutes. They stood their ground and held off Boston, with Bob making saves when things did get through the defense. Despite the zone time disparity in the third period, Florida held down the fort and kept their one-goal lead, which is a game that they play extremely well. The Panthers are 71-0-4 when leading after two periods, a stat that dates back to 03/07/23, including the playoffs. Hard-fought one-goal games is Florida’s bread and butter when it comes to how they like to play, if they start getting into a track meet, as HC Paul Maurice likes to say, that’s where they get into trouble. The Cats forced the Bruins’ depth players to make plays and kept the top lines from scoring goals. Overall, this was a much better effort from Florida than from the Buffalo game on Saturday.
The Panthers are back in action on Tuesday against the Blue Jackets.
ITR 50: Atlantic Division Preview – Inside The Rink
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