This is a VERY good update for the Panthers...

This is a very good update for the Florida Panthers. Brady Kachuk disappeared in the second period and well, I've got an update and some good news regarding that first line. With Brady Kachuk, Sam Reinhardt, and Alexander Barkov, don't know why Brady Kachuk was cut out of that picture, but he was in it. But anyways, lot to get to, gonna try to condense this episode a little bit. Kind of go over last night's game, take a look at what's coming up on Thursday against our in-state rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning. This is Panthers Digest, guys. I'm your host, Greg Andrews. Comment, like, share, subscribe, hype of the video. Appreciate every single one of you guys tuning in, supporting me, supporting the channel, and your Florida Panthers. The game last night, yeah, it's preseason, who cares? Even Paul Maurice came out in his post-game press conference and said, a lot of good. He literally came out and when reporters were asking him, well, what are you gonna take away from the mistakes? How are you gonna go into the next game fixing these things? He's like, that's not how I look at these games. That's not what they're here for. He has already said with the condensed preseason schedule and training camp, it is not the same as it was in the past. We're obviously gonna see a much more AHL-looking roster for the next couple of games. But the whole idea behind this is to set the roster, build a little bit of chemistry, see what's working, see what isn't working. And there's a lot that some players had to say, including Seth Jones, about the state of the team right now, in terms of what's happening this preseason. Akira Schmid, you're gonna hear from him in this, as well as Paul Maurice, on what happened with Brady Kachuck last night. Everyone, breathe a sigh of relief. Don't worry, we're gonna get to it in just a moment. But I gotta start off with what happened last night. Shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, I don't care. Big whoop, it's preseason, no one cares. The one thing I do care about is how great Barkov, Brady Kachuk, Sam Reinhardt have been. Other players shined bright last night again. Emama was actually a lot of fun to watch, watching him get in that fight. Right in his very first shift, that was pretty exciting. But unfortunately, I don't think we're gonna see him on the opening day roster. But other players played well. I think Kachuk is playing well. That second line looks good. I think everyone is looking decent. But there's still things that need to be worked out. Let's take a look at the box score here. I'm sorry, the team stats, box score will be next. So you see here, we outshot them by seven. They out hit us, they played a more physical style of game. But the one thing I think the Florida Panthers are trying not to do is be too physical in the preseason. So just to let you know, again, Thursday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, AHL dominant roster, good thing. Hopefully a lot of those guys that are the veterans played 100 plus NHL games will not be playing because I would say Tampa Bay looked for them to come out and probably be dirty and bring in their guys to try to come out and hurt us. But the bad news, we have a lot of defensemen that I think we'll still see on the ice. And I hope we don't. I hope Eckblad gets a rest. I hope we see Mikula get a rest. And maybe we see some other guys come in from the AHL and kind of come in there, see how we're going to look. But again, I do think it's Belinskis who will be the seventh man. And we'll probably see him play on Thursday night as well. He'll be the seventh man on our roster for defensemen, or defensive pairing, excuse me. But you can see the face-off win percentages have been very lopsided in our favor. Barkov, Lundell have been very good. Even Cole Schwint has had moments where he has looked good. But you can see here, very similar stats here if you're looking at the penalty minutes, the block shots, takeaways, giveaways. Except for the takeaways, they had more than we did. Giveaways, call it even. But I'd say, for the most part, we should have dominated that game a little bit more. But again, some mistakes here and there. I'm not gonna overthink it. Working off a little bit of that rust. Trying to get the chemistry back. Two new goaltenders in net for us who did have better games. Obviously, Markstrom did play better in this one. Only played a limited amount of time. Bushmid coming in. But anyways, these are the numbers. These are the box score. This is the box score. Excuse me, you can see Barkov and Lundell. Each at 72% in the face-off circle. Awesome, that's what we wanna see is Lundell getting better in the face-off circle. That's gonna lead to better chances, especially in the offensive zone. Yes, it is preseason. Maybe that will go down for Lundell. But I think he's gonna get better. You can see all the things I've marked up here. Even Colschwent with an eight win, six losses in the circle. The big thing I want you to see is the giveaways. Vilmanis had four giveaways. Lundell had three. They're trying to make plays. They're trying to make something happen. So I'm not gonna overthink it. Again, I'm not gonna go in this position where like, oh my God. But Vilmanis was physical. He had four hits. Even our captain, Barkov, was getting on the hit action with two. And Imamov, obviously, with three. He's a very physical player. So one goal, one assist for Barkov. Amazing no-look goal. Phenomenal. Brady Kachuk started the scoring with the power play. We all know how amazing he is. That pass from Reinhardt, he saw Brady Kachuk moving, got the pass in there, right on the stick, and it left Brady Kachuk's stick in a millisecond and went right past the Carolina goaltender. So that first line has been nothing short of, what I believe, excuse me, people should have expected from this team was they're gonna be probably one of the top lines in the league. Obviously, they should be. I mean, from what we've seen so far, but I'm not gonna go off and say, you know what, they're gonna be the best line. I know I said they could be the best line. Again, could be. I'm not gonna say they will. But let's see. We're not there yet. Right, the season hasn't started. But from what I'm seeing, they're very, very good. Very good. So I'm excited. I think it's awesome. Sorry, Brady Kachuk's goal was not a power play goal. Excuse me, that was in the first game. But still, he started off the scoring once again. So I'm happy to see what our forwards have been putting up there. Solid numbers across the board. Reinhardt has been putting up good numbers, getting on the assist action, obviously. And that first line's really feeling it, meshing very well. So let's take a look at our defensemen. Here we go, defensive pairings. Solid numbers across the board. Again, the plus minus not that great for Eckblad or Forsling. But hey, that's okay. But look at the giveaways by Eckblad. Happened more times than not. Little shaky. But again, I'm not gonna overthink preseason games. He's trying to make things happen. Being aggressive. And that's the point. Every player's trying to showcase. Even the guys on the opening day roster are still trying to get out there, showcase what they can do. Seth Jones getting an assist there. I'm loving what I'm seeing from our defensive pairings. They're hitting. Gutis is doing what we all know he can do. Same thing with Mikula. And shots. Three for Eckblad, three for Forsling. They're trying to get those shots in from the blue line or even from some weak side angles. And try to get some of those deflections or have it bounce back and get kind of a dirty goal, a little garbage goal coming off of a, bounce off one of the pads from the goaltender. Excuse me, I'm trying to read something really quick. I just got a text message. But yeah, I mean, I'm really liking what I'm seeing from the team. You can see there, both goaltenders had identical numbers. 923 save percentages. Even save percentages more for Schmid. He didn't really face a whole lot in power play, which is good. Shorthanded saves, he had a couple. I did like what I saw from both of them. I think Markstrom had a bit of a better game. He looked a little sharper, especially on the power play. Oh, excuse me, the penalty kill. He looked a little bit sharper. He was getting the pad out there. He was making some decent saves. But I'm just telling you guys right now, I don't think we should be looking for Markstrom to be getting a 900 plus save percentage night in and night out. And again, don't look at this as that's gonna be bad. It can be deceiving. If our front five that are always out there on the ice in front of Markstrom or Schmid are out there and they're limiting shots, but one or two get by, I'll just give you a very easy mathematical example. Let's say we win the game four to two, but Markstrom only faced 10 shots and he let two go by him. That's an 800 save percentage and it doesn't seem like it's very good. On the other flip side of that, okay, that doesn't sound very good at all, but hey, you still won the game. And then you do the math on something like, okay, he faced 40 shots and let five go in. So you're saying 35 out of 40. I'm just gonna do the math for you here. All right, 35 out of 40, that's an 875 save percentage. A lot better than the 800, but he faced a hell of a lot more shots. So it can be deceiving with that number, so don't look too much into save percentage. I would say goals against average would have more heavyweight than an actual save percentage because if our defense is great and we're limiting shots from the opponents, don't worry about save percentage. Get used to maybe having stuff around that 880, maybe do a 910 save percentage, but nothing that's gonna lead the league, unfortunately. But we're also early, we'll see. Maybe Markstrom comes into his own and has this unbelievable season. So anyways, what do the players have to say about this? But it was a better improvement for Markstrom from the first game where he faced 24 shots, or was it 24, he let four in, whatever it was. I'm trying to remember, excuse me if I'm off. I'm gonna go back through it right now to tell you guys. So that save percentage, excuse me, buck score, there we are. It was, it was 923. Sorry, I believe it was an 875 save percentage and he stopped 24 of 20. I believe that's what it is. So again, don't think that this is the end of the world because that happened. It's okay. Let's not anticipate him again having a 925 save percentage night in and night out. I was trying to look at this, yeah, 875, he faced 24 shots, stopped 21. But if you look at Vasilevsky, the number of games where he had a 900 or better save percentage, I believe it was 40 or 41% of his games, I think that Markstrom last year had, I believe it was 31% of his games in total where he had a 900 or better save percentage. Doesn't matter about the wins. That's not what I'm talking about. But anyways, let's keep rolling. What does Seth Jones have to say about what's going on in these first couple of games in preseason? He says, really about just getting our timing right with the little plays that we make all over the ice and getting that chemistry back from the year before. It's like I said, we're seeing little things happen here and there, little problems, little gaffs, little, oh man, I was out of position. Let that guy through. They also have to start working better with their goaltender, listening to them. They haven't had a lot of time working together, so I'm not gonna look into too much of preseason play. If at the beginning of the season, we're seeing stupid plays being made, guys getting through the slot too easy, not looking behind you, seeing where another player is, that could be an issue, but again, that's just gonna come with getting your bearings back. It's been a long offseason for the Panthers, the longest one in the recent several years, so let's not think too much of it. So here's Akira Schmid, what he had to say about getting in the net. He said, just get the feel of playing a game again. That's big. Not a bad night for him. Obviously, the shot that came from our near side circle that just went in that upper 90, not gonna be an easy one for any goaltender to stop. I mean, he's not the biggest of goaltenders. He's not 6'6", 6'7", like Markstrom is, but still, that was kind of a wild play that happened, just got flicked on net and just hit that upper 90, so I'm not gonna think too much of it. Now, to Brady Kachuk, what happened? He disappeared in the second period, didn't show back up for the third. Oh my God, there's nothing to worry about. Paul Maurice said, this was minor, just a precautionary. He may as well be on the ice tomorrow. We'll see, but it's not an injury. Just tightening up on him, it's an exhibition. Didn't wanna put him too through much and put him through too much, excuse me, because he's been playing great. Let the guy rest. He's been very solid this preseason, and I don't think we have any problem. There it is right down there. And I'll leave you guys with this. The game on Thursday will be an interesting one to see how we play against Tampa Bay. Who is gonna be in net? Will it be Schmid? Will it be Cooper Black? I think Markstrom might get the rest. We'll see. They're probably not gonna let us know the travel roster, or excuse me, just not the travel roster, but the roster as well as the other travel roster for the last game of the preseason for the Florida Panthers. We'll see what that is. So yeah, so we're at the lightning so that will be a travel day. We'll see. I'm not worried. I think the Cats are gonna be fine. It's gonna be a very heavy AHL roster. So let's just let it go. Breathe a sigh of relief. I think the team's gonna be great this season. They look solid. I'm not worried at all. The only time it would be is if something had happened to Brady Kachuk, but that's not it. Because Kachuk and having Bram Arshad out, that's gonna be a pretty big hit. It changes our lives completely. But right now, I'm happy with what I'm seeing. I hope you guys are too. Tell me what you think about our goaltending. What do you think about what you've seen so far in the preseason? Who do you think right now after last night, not seeing Cole Reinhardt put up massive numbers, who do you think right now is kind of inching their way into that position of being the last guy in on the fourth line? And then who are gonna be the two other guys that'll make the 23-man roster in terms of guys that could take the place of scratches? Let me know what you think. Comment down below. Appreciate all you guys. Until next time, go cats.