Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky ‘held down the fort’ his past two starts. Can it continue?
Sergei Bobrovsky’s first save set on Thursday set the tone. Anton Stralman lost the puck in the Florida Panthers’ defensive zone about four minutes into regulation. Tampa Bay Lightning forward Barclay Goodrow weaved in front of Bobrovsky and fired a back-handed shot at Florida’s net. Bobrovsky quickly kicked out his left leg, batting the puck to the boards before the Panthers cleared it out of the zone.
“You have to be extra focused,” Bobrovsky said. “You have to be in the moment to make those kind of saves.”
About five minutes later, the Panthers opened scoring with a goal from Frank Vatrano and never looked back. They cruised to a 5-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at the BB&T Center in the first of three matchups in a five-day span. The teams play again at 7 p.m. Saturday at the BB&T Center and then face off again Monday at Tampa’s Amalie Arena. They will play eight times total this season.
And while Florida’s high-scoring effort was the highlight of the night, it’s hard to undersell just how valuable Bobrovsky was in net.
Bobrovsky stopped 19 of 21 shots that came his way, including all 16 at 5-on-5 strength. He held a Tampa Bay team that had scored at least four goals in five of their past six games to just a pair of power-play goals.
“It’s definitely a big win for us tonight,” Bobrovsky said. “We know that Tampa is a really good team… I thought the guys did a great job. They didn’t allow them to create anything. We had great sticks in the defensive zone. Our D held the blue line very well on the rush attacks. We crushed their attacks right in the beginning of the development.”
Bobrovsky is now 5-0-1 on the season, his best individual start through six games and the second-longest point streak by a Panthers goaltender to start a season (John Vanbiesbrouck went 6-0-3 through his first nine starts in 1996- 97).
But his individual performance in net has improved remarkably the past two games. After allowing 15 goals on 126 shots through the first four games of the season (a .881 save percentage), Bobrovsky has allowed just three on a combined 53 shots (.943 save percentage) in regulation wins over the Red Wings on Tuesday and Lightning on Thursday.
“He held down the fort,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “Nice to see him get solid wins for us in back-to-back games.”
Staying ‘nimble’ in age of COVID-19
The Panthers had to make a late lineup change on Thursday when top line winger Anthony Duclair landed on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list.
Brett Connolly took Duclair’s spot on the top line and was on the ice for a season-high 15:54. He took three shots on goal and scored on an empty net with a minute to go in regulation.
It is unclear how long Duclair will be out.
”When we get the news on something like this,” Quenneville said, “with the change in the protocol, it’s like how we have been all year. You have to be flexible. You can use the word nimble. There’s a lot of unpredictability here and we thought, let’s move Connolly into that spot and I thought he did a good job.”
This and that
▪ Aleksander Barkov’s secondary assist on Aaron Ekblad’s power-play goal in the second period gave him his 419th career point. He is now tied with Olli Jokinen for second all-time in Panthers history. Teammate Jonathan Huberdeau is the record holder at 452.
▪ Tampa Bay’s 21 total shots on goal are the least the Panthers have allowed in a game this season.
▪ The Panthers have outscored opponents 16-7 in the second period this season. The plus-9 differential is tied with the Los Angeles Kings for third, behind only to the Montreal Canadiens (plus-12) and the Lightning (plus-10).
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