Florida Panthers find strength in numbers on historic run to Eastern Conference finals
The Florida Panthers were seconds from their first trip to the Eastern Conference finals since 1996, and Matthew Tkachuk was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Aleksander Barkov, nor Aaron Ekblad nor Brandon Montour. Instead, Radko Gudas led the Panthers in transition, and Nick Cousins scored the overtime, series-winning goal to oust the Maple Leafs on Friday in Toronto.
A third-pairing defenseman and a fourth-line forward turned second-line role player sent Florida to the NHL Conference finals. Three days later, Cousins was still trying to get back to everyone who reached out to congratulate him.
“It’s one of those moments where you’ll grow up and you’ll tell your kids about,” said Cousins, who only played 11 games on the Panthers’ top two forward lines in the regular season.
A run like the one Florida is on requires contributions like Cousins’. The Panthers upset the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins in Round 1 and then the Stanley Cup-contending Maple Leafs in Round 2, and now will face another Cup contender in Round 3 when they open the East finals Thursday against the Hurricanes in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Any deep run in the Stanley Cup playoffs requires timely contributions from role players and breakout stars from the fringes of rosters, and especially when an underdog like Florida goes on one. Cousins, who moved up into the top six to play with center Sam Bennett and Tkachuk in the middle of the Boston series, was only the latest one.
“The way we were able to play as a team was the difference,” Tkachuk said Friday.
In the first round, Tkachuk was a one-man wrecking crew, scoring five goals and handing out six assists in seven games. In the second round, only two Panthers averaged a point per game, and only one scored more than two goals and Tkachuk never did.
Of the 14 goals Florida scored on Toronto, Barkov, Tkcahuk, Ekblad and Montour combined for just three, and the only players to score multiple goals were Cousins, and fellow wingers Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe, none of whom have ever been an All-Star.
They’re the sort of contributions it’s mostly impossible to rely upon, but also what teams need and the Panthers’ style of play is conducive to get them.
Florida has had 14 different players score at least once and 10 score at least twice — both the second most among teams in the Conference Finals.
“Our team was built for this moment,” Tkachuk said.
The Panthers lead all the remaining teams in hits and have forced more giveaways than anyone else in the final four. They turn defense into offense, and Florida creates 27.8 scoring chances and 12.1 high-danger scoring chances per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play despite moving away from the transition game it leaned on last year.
Only the Hurricanes, who are in many way a mirror image of the Panthers, are averaging more 5-on-5 scoring chances and 5-on-5 high-danger chances per 60 minutes in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, among remaining teams. They’re both good offensive teams and even better defensively, at least in these Cup playoffs.
“It’s not just strictly a defensive-minded team,” right wing Anthony Duclair said. “We’re playing tight, and then we’re using our speed to get the offense and get rushes going.”
Although the last goal at Scotiabank Arena wasn’t the product of a takeaway turning into a quick scoring chance, Florida still turned offense into defense to win Game 5.
On one end of the ice, Toronto forward Noel Acciari tried a centering pass and Gudas broke it up in front of the net. The puck bounced out to the boards, the 32-year-old Czech corralled and started up the ice. He tapped a pass to Cousins and then barreled to the goal — probably getting away with an interference as he held the stick of versatile Maple Leafs forward Calle Jarnkrok in front of the net — to clear space for Cousins to toe drag, shoot and score.
Tkachuk was on the ice, but never touched the puck and wasn’t even into the offensive zone by the time Cousins scored.
“He’s not afraid to make plays like he did,” All-Star center Aleksander Barkov said Friday. “Many other guys would’ve just shot it right away. He made a nice move and scored.”
Right now, Florida’s four centers are Barkov, Bennett, Anton Lundell and Eric Staal, and lines centered by all four have scored multiple times in these Cup playoffs.
The Panthers have 10 goals in these playoffs when Bennett is on the ice for 5-on-5 play, seven with Lundell, six with Barkov and even two with Staal, and only Staal’s lines — the fourth line — has been outscored.
“Each and every night, it could be one line that carries the load and then the next night it’s another line. I think with our team, that’s what makes us challenging to play against,” Tkachuk said. “It’s hard to match up with our four forward lines, especially when everyone’s going like we have been.”
This story was originally published May 16, 2023 at 5:01 PM.
