Bobrovsky saved the Panthers’ season in relief Thursday. It’s his net again for Game 4
When the game-winning goal rattling around the back of the net and Ryan Lomberg was celebrating with nearly every one of his Florida Panthers teammates along the boards at Amalie Arena, Chris Driedger charged out of the bench and headed for the opposite side of the rink, where Sergei Bobrovsky was slowly gliding his way toward the mob around the heroic left wing.
Owen Tippett smacked the winning goaltender on the back, and Driedger waited with his arms outstretched to hug the goalie he replaced earlier Thursday and eventually was replaced by after a disastrous five-goal second period in Tampa.
When Bobrovsky came in, the Panthers trailed by two and had 20 minutes to avoid falling into a near-insurmountable three-game series hole against the Tampa Bay Lightning. After nine saves and a shutout spanning 25:56, Bobrovsky was one of many heroes Florida needed to cut the Lightning’s series lead to 2-1 and he earned the start for Game 4 on Saturday.
“He was excited about the challenge when he got put into the game,” Quenneville said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him happier than he was after the game.”
On Friday, the coach confirmed Bobrovsky will start in Game 4 as the Panthers try to even the series on the road.
In a postseason filled with tough decisions for Quenneville, his move to start Driedger for Game 3 was defensible.
Driedger had the fifth best goals-against average in the NHL in the regular season and was tied for fourth in save percentage. He outplayed Bobrovsky in nearly every statistic. Each goaltender started once in the first two games of the series in Sunrise, and Driedger far outperformed his counterpart.
Driedger even shut out the Lightning for the first period Thursday, notching 10 saves while Florida built a two-goal lead. In the second, he gave up five goals on 12 shots, and Quenneville’s next decision was no longer very tough. He had to go back to Bobrovsky, and the momentum swung back in Florida’s favor.
During the second intermission, Quenneville sat in the coach’s room and talked through the possibilities of a comeback.
“If Bob can keep them at zero,” he recalled the coaches deciding, “we’ve got a chance here.”
Bobrovsky only faced six shots in the third period. The Panthers cut Tampa Bay’s lead to one on a power-play goal in the first two minutes of the third, then forced overtime when defenseman Gustav Forsling scored with 3:07 remaining.
“Obviously, it’s a bit of a momentum change,” Lomberg said. “Bob shut the door and allowed us the opportunity to come back.”
In overtime, Bobrovsky made three saves in the first six minutes before Lomberg won the game with 14:04 left on the clock.
Florida’s goaltending options have been a strength all year, even if Bobrovsky isn’t living up to his seven-year, $70 million contract. Neither Bobrovsky nor Driedger have been overly taxed in the condensed schedule and the Panthers never have felt they had to stick with one struggling starter.
After Bobrovsky gave up five goals on 39 shots in Game 1, Quenneville was ready to let Driedger seize the job. Bobrovsky, though, has his contract because of the highs he can hit. Last time he played in the traditional 16-team postseason, Bobrovsky was at the center of the No. 8 seed Columbus Blue Jackets’ first-round upset of top-seeded Tampa Bay in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs.
After two tumultuous seasons in South Florida, Bobrovsky earned the right to start the Panthers’ biggest game in years.
“I’ve got to commend Bob on how he handled it right off the get-go,” Quenneville said. “The way the year went about that, he was playing, basically shared a good partnership with Driedge and then when you get to the playoffs we were in that mode that it was, We’ll see.
“Things change quickly in our business, especially at the goaltending position. We know how important it is to winning in the regular season and you compound it times 10 in the playoffs.”
Panthers keep Yandle on shelf
Florida didn’t practice Friday and won’t have a morning skate Saturday, so Quenneville said it’s “very likely” he keeps his Game 3 lineup intact for Game 4.
It means Keith Yandle is on track to be a healthy scratch for the second straight game.
Yandle missed his first game since 2009 on Thursday after he struggled through the first two games of the series at the BB&T Center, prompting Quenneville to reshuffle his defensive pairings with the Panthers in a two-game series hole.
Yandle currently has the NHL’s longest active consecutive regular-season games streak at 922. His streak is the second longest in league history and has him 42 away from matching the record. While postseason games don’t count toward Yandle’s record chase, the 34-year-old had never missed a playoff game before Thursday, either.
Quenneville said the decision was “extremely difficult.”
“We’ve had some tough decisions this year,” he said. “With Yands, we’re always aware of the situation in the regular season, but we made the decision to go with a different group. ... We had some different pairs. I liked how we played as a group of defensemen outside of that second period.”
With Yandle out, Anton Stralman was the sixth active defenseman and played next to star defenseman MacKenzie Weegar on the top pairing.
Quenneville also said Aleksander Barkov is “fine” after sustaining an undisclosed injury in the first period Thursday. The star defenseman missed most of the first, but returned for the final two periods and overtime.
This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 3:03 PM.
