Alex Lyon feels the love (tonight) as he steps in, steps up during Panthers’ playoff push
For the third time in four days, “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” — from “The Lion King” soundtrack — boomed out of the Florida Panthers’ locker room after a must-have road win.
Even Alex Lyon, who’s the inspiration behind the new victory song, isn’t sure who’s the mastermind behind this serendipitous tradition, although he suspects it’s Ryan Lomberg. It’s not all the Panthers are doing to honor their unlikely hero these days, either: Inside the dressing room Saturday, Aleksander Barkov gave the goaltender the game puck for his first career shutout and then they all watched as he tried to chug his protein shake.
Right now, Florida does not look like a team stressed out by a postseason race. “Hakuna matata.”
“He’s brought a little bit of joy to our room,” coach Paul Maurice said.
It’s working for the Panthers, who have now followed up a season-worst four-game losing streak by winning three in a row, all with Lyon starting in goal as star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky deals with an illness.
With only five games left in the regular season, Lyon will get another start Tuesday when Florida (39-31-7) hosts the Buffalo Sabres (37-31-7) at 7 p.m. at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise. What the 30-year-old goalie is doing is instrumental right now as the Panthers try to regroup and make the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
On Wednesday, Lyon stepped in to start against the Stanley Cup-contending Maple Leafs and he stopped 38 of 40 shots to pick up a skid-snapping overtime win in Toronto. A day later, he started again and stopped 18 of 20 shots to beat the Canadiens in Montreal. Finally, he saved all 21 shots he faced from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday to lead a 7-0 rout at Nationwide Arena in Ohio.
Florida won three of four on a crucial late-season road trip and the third win pushed the Panthers back into the second wild card, one point ahead of the Penguins.
“I wish I could be super humble, but it actually does feel pretty good,” Lyon said Saturday. “This is just kind of one of those things I always wanted and I never knew the opportunity would present itself.”
Lyon, who was undrafted out of Yale, has to go back to his rookie season for the last time he got a chance like this one. He played 11 games for the Flyers during the 2017-18 NHL season and helped them get to the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs by picking up seven wins while filling in for an injured goalie. Since then, he hadn’t played more than six NHL games in a season, until this year.
The circle of life repeats itself.
Back in January, Lyon had to play six consecutive games when both Bobrovsky and fellow goaltender Spencer Knight were out, and he held his own by picking up three wins with an overtime loss and beating the league-best Bruins despite twice having to play both ends of a back-to-back set. It helped the Panthers tread water throughout perhaps their most difficult stretch of the season and he returned to Florida for a similar one last week, suiting up for the final three games of a stretch with seven games in 11 days. This time, he won all three.
In his life spent bouncing between the NHL and American Hockey League, Lyon has learned how to be prepared for these moments.
“We have a lot of confidence in him,” left wing Carter Verhaeghe said Saturday.
Added Maurice: “He looks a bit different now. The second time through, he looks a little more calm, more relaxed.”
Lyon feels the love — maybe even a little too much.
Lyon, who was 1 when “The Lion King” came out in 1994 and therefore almost certainly intimately familiar with the film, is “getting a little sick” of Elton John’s certified-platinum song. If he gets to keep playing this week, he has another idea for how to celebrate a win.
“The entire ‘Lion King’ soundtrack is good,” he said, “so maybe we’ll move on to the next one.”
This story was originally published April 2, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
