The Florida Panthers are starting to look UNBEATABLE... | Florida Panthers News

The Florida Panthers are starting to look unbeatable and it has Panthers fans fired up. The man between the pipes has been on fire in all five games in their first round series and their defense has been nothing short of spectacular. As they move on to round two we'll go over what that matchup looks like, what had happened in round one that made them so successful, and who is going to have to step up in order for this team to win in round two and move on and hopefully have this team on the road to repeating as Stanley Cup champions. Guys, thank you for joining me on this episode of Panthers Digest. I am Greg Andrews. Please click that subscribe button down below so you can stay up to date with anything and everything that has to do with your defending Stanley Cup champion, Florida Panthers. Man, what a first round series. It was exciting. It was physical. And it did come without a little bit of controversy, obviously, with the two suspensions. But that's not what we're going to talk about on this episode. We're going to do a little review of that first round series of what worked and what's going to have to carry over into round two and who are they going to battle and how are they going to have the success to beat that team. So the best part of this first round series was seeing Bobrovsky dominate, but we're just going to talk about this. They topped them in game number five. They closed out the series four to one in dominating fashion and it really wasn't that close. If you're looking at all the stat lines, which I'm not going to go over again because I did it in the last episode and I started to point out specific things about what the Panthers are doing right on the penalty kill. Defensively, they have been just standing up the lightning in every single spot on that ice. They've shut down their big lines. Kucherov, Hedman, Hagel, except for Gwenzel. He actually had a very good series. He had the most points on their team and was scoring pretty easily. But Nikita Kucherov, the Art Ross trophy winner, he only had four assists and seven shots in the series. They shut him down. He was pretty much a non-factor in that first round series. And I'm going to tell you this, that I think says a lot about what could possibly happen in round two when they face the Toronto Maple Leafs in terms of an two players that are very similar and can score at will and generate a lot of offense. But we'll get into that in a second. But I think the Panthers show that they're capable of being able to play a defensive style of hockey that can stop any team with any caliber of player, no matter who they are. And that's what should be scary for the teams that they are going to end up facing. So these are the postseason stats as of right now in the five game series that was. The red are the Panthers numbers. I wanted to show you guys the power play percentage. They had 25%, but they killed 89% of the lightning power plays, which is a staggering number. It's incredible to see. Panthers are averaging 3.8 goals per game. Phenomenal. But I want you to look at the bottom there. The Tampa Bay Lightning are the second to worst team in the postseason when it comes to goals per game. They were not good on the power play at all at 11%, which is below their 25 and a half or 25.6% in the regular season and a 75% penalty kill, which wasn't very good either because their season average, I believe was in like the low eighties. But the big number here is that goals per game, 2.4 goals per game in the playoffs. They had 3.56 goals per game in the regular season. So that just shows you how amazing the Panthers were on defense, especially in the penalty kill. It was incredible. The amount in succession that they had killed off, I think it was somewhere around 12 or 14. I'm not going to get to the exact number, but they had killed off an enormous amount of power plays in that series. Even the five minute ones, it was remarkable to watch the chemistry on every line being able to disrupt the Lightning's special teams and some of the best players in the league were on the ice in those times and the Panthers were able to shut them down. Outstanding play by their defense. These are the regular season stats. Like I said, I'm not really going to go into these too much, but we'll keep moving forward right now, guys. This really isn't about what was, but will be, and this is what will be. The Panthers are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be physical. I'm going to get into what happened in the regular season between these two teams and then what we're going to expect moving forward from the goaltending aspect and that is really what I want to cover right now. These two men are going to be facing off against each other. Past teammates, now foes. Bobrovsky versus Stolarz and Stolarz has been very good. We'll talk about his numbers in a minute, but the biggest takeaway I want you guys to see from this is these two guys were pals. They're both incredible goaltenders, but we're going to see, are the Maple Leafs going to have a little bit of an upper hand with Stolarz knowing about the Panthers offense, how they run things, what to expect from certain players and where they're going to shoot. That could be a little bit, excuse me, of a kind of a cheat code for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a way, but with the way the Panthers have been moving the puck, controlling it, and these nice, beautiful, crisp passes, especially from Brad Marchand, who has just looked on point, gelling with that Lundell Lusteranen line, has been spectacular. Nothing short of spectacular. I mean, that game five, incredible. Eetu Lusteranen had a hell of a game. A goal and three assists, unbelievable night for him. And it was thanks to Brad Marchand, who had some incredible passes in front of that net to help him get on the board. And then again, Lusteranen was passing well. I mean, the game just came easily for the Panthers after it was tied three-three, three goals in a row without a response from the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they just ran away with it, guys. But what I want to talk about now moving forward is when we're looking at the Panthers versus the Toronto Maple Leafs, they're underneath the Tampa Bay Lightning there. You can see these are Bob's stats in the regular season in the four games that he played. The Panthers went three and one in those four games, but look at his numbers. 1.77 goals against and a 92.5% save percentage. Very, very strong numbers. He's played great against the Maple Leafs. The only thing I would say I would be worried about is the numbers that Toronto has put up in their first round series, which was scrappy as hell against the Ottawa Senators. Toronto had to be a little more rough and tumble with them because Ottawa was a very physical team, similar to the Panthers. And that's something I think is going to be a big-time thing to note in every single game in this series, is how physical can Toronto be with the most physical team in the NHL, the Panthers, who had the most hits in the regular season, and I think still have the most hits in the playoffs right now. In just five games, they have an enormous amount of hits. So if I'm going back and I'm looking at the numbers in total to be a little more in-depth for you guys in terms of the Toronto Panthers series. Now, these are numbers that I've taken, I've compiled from all four games. So shots for Florida, 117 in those four games, a 29 shots per game average. Toronto's 93 with a 23 shots per game average. Hits. Florida out-hit and was more physical than Toronto in the regular season by far. 150 hits, 37 per game, to Toronto's 97 and 24 hits per game. Again, the physicality, I've said this before, the physicality is going to be a big game-changer for the Panthers. That helps them on defense, it helps them win pucks, it helps them win the battle of the boards and the corners, even when it's behind the net. Even in neutral ice, those body checks are the biggest thing. That physicality, I think, is going to be a game-changer. But there's another stat here, and I've said this one before as well, that I think is going to make or break the series for the Cats. So face-off percentage, 52% in favor of the Cats in the regular season. But again, I'll get into the stats from the Ottawa series that Toronto just had. That's a pretty even stat there. I've said that the face-off percentage is going to be big. The Panthers need to win in their offensive zone so they can strike fast. And they also have to win the defensive zone, especially on special teams. They need to make sure they can get that puck out of the zone, clear it all the way down, make sure they're killing the clock as much as they can. Or even on neutral ice, they need to be in that neutral zone in the middle where they can win the puck, gain control, and start to lead their offensive charge. If not, again, kill time on the clock. They've been doing a great job of killing time when necessary. Power plays. The Panthers in the on 11 power plays, guys. That's 45% efficiency. Incredible. On the other side of that, the Maple Leafs were 1 for 9. That's 11%. That's not that much. But they've had a lot of success in the postseason. Now blocks. This is where I said, in the regular season, the Panthers only had 41 blocks in the four games, which is 10 per game. That's not a lot. They've picked that up in that first-round series against the Lightning. A lot more. And Toronto, 73 block shots in their four-game series, which is 18 per game. So this is where I wanted to tell you guys. In that first-round series that they just won last night against Ottawa, Toronto picked up their numbers big time. Hits. They had 204 hits. I know it was six games, which is 34 per game. Power play. Six goals on 17 attempts, 35%. Pretty solid. Blocks. 128 blocks. 21 per game. But I want to note here, there were 32 blocks that they had in game number one and 28 blocks in game number four. That is putting your body and sacrificing the body for your goaltender. That's one of the reasons why I think they had so much success in that first-round series. I know they had the two games towards the end there that they gave up to Ottawa, but they are putting their bodies on the line for their goaltender Stolars. And then a face-off percentage, they were dominating the circle at 57%. That's an area I think is going to be very touchy-feely for the Panthers that they need to do a better job of in the series in order to have success to control the ice a little bit more so than what they've done in the past. So Panthers goaltending this off-season so far. These are Bob's numbers heading into round two now. This is after the five games. 2.21 goals against average. I don't know why it says 2.4 at the bottom there, but I think it's just the total goals that were actually scored on average there and the 90% save percentage. The numbers are a little bit off. I wouldn't say like, oh man, we should be worried. Almost 2.5 goals per game. 2.4 goals per game. To me, that's not saying that we're in trouble. We score more per game, but that kind of offsets everything. So I'm not too worried. But this, this is an interesting thing. Look at Stolarz. His numbers are very similar to Bob's. Very, very, very similar. So I think this matchup is going to be very even between the pipes. It's going to come down to efficiency on special teams, and it's going to come down to penalty kills. Well, I just said that. Sorry, not penalty kills, but the ability to control the puck and lay the body out. Be physical in this series. In the last series, in this last series for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa took it to them. Okay? I already went through the numbers here. They gave them a run for their money. I think it was closer than people thought, but again, I think there was more talent on the Toronto Maple Leafs roster, and that's the thing I think the Panthers are really going to have to look at. I mean, they have some studs on that team. They are deeper than I think the Lightning were. Austin Matthews, Tavares, Domi, Pacioretty, Ekman Larson, who's an ex-Panther, as well as Stolarz. I mean, you've got some very, very, very talented guys on that roster, and that is a little bit scary, I would say, as a Panthers fan to think about going into this series. So the one thing I want to show you guys right now is right here. This is Bob on Stolarz and them facing each other in this next round. Good relationship, great partnership as well. It's going to be fun, and he's very good at what he does. Yes, obviously he is. He's helped them get this far after the trade was made, but you know, I'm sorry, not the trade, excuse me. He was gone, but I mean, at the end of the season last year, and every reason to be. He's a phenomenal goaltender, guys. Phenomenal. So as we move forward here, this is the big guy that we're going to have to stop. In 67 games, 33 goals, 45 assists, 78 points, he's a difference maker on offense. He's a difference maker on defense. He's a big guy. He will throw the body around. He can poke check. He's a good defender as well. He is going to be the man that we're going to have to keep watching on the ice and have that kind of sixth sense of where is he at all times, because he is a sneaky guy. He's a fast skater, a great skater, a great puck controller. So we're going to have to keep our eyes out for that, guys. So this series is going to be nothing short of entertaining with tons of energy, physicality. This is going to be one of the series that you're going to have to put your eyeballs on the screen at every second that it is on, and don't just look where the puck is. Look everywhere else. There's going to be a lot of things happening outside of where the puck is going to be, guys. There's going to be a lot of hitting, scrumming. I think guys are going to get in each other's heads. It's going to be a psychological kind of warfare series, I believe. And again, I'm still going to bring up that possibility of that Marchand-Bennett-Kachuk line. We could see them all on the ice together. I hope we do. I think it'll happen more so if the if it's closer. I think we'll see that line come together to try to get a boost psychologically for this team to get a little bit more of an upper hand. But that's all I got for you guys today. And thank you guys for watching this episode. And don't forget to subscribe down below. Like, comment, share. I want to hear from you guys as well. If you have any topics or anything that you would like to discuss or like me to come out there and discuss, please do not hesitate to write. I will write you guys back. Again, thank you so much for watching. Let's go cats!