Having ‘more of an attack mentality’ has paid dividends for Florida Panthers’ Sam Reinhart
Sam Reinhart is quick to deflect credit, even in the midst of the best year of his NHL career. The Florida Panthers forward leads the team and is tied for fourth in the NHL with 23 goals heading into Tuesday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes that starts a four-game road trip.
But there has to be something going right individually for Reinhart to be having this type of success, right?
For Reinhart, 28, it’s all a matter of building on what he has already accomplished.
“You have the confidence when things start going well, and it’s easy to build off of it,” Reinhart said last week. “I have more of an attack mentality. When you’re feeling confident and things are going well, you want the puck. When you’re struggling or when you’re not feeling the best, you’re almost kind of hoping someone else makes the play.”
Reinhart has always had a knack for scoring. He has 221 goals in 650 games played, has hit the 20-goal mark in each of the past seven seasons and is well on his way to his third 30-goal campaign in as many seasons with the Panthers.
But Reinhart has also been prone to slow starts before heating up by the end of the season.
Take a look at his first two seasons with the Panthers. In the 2021-22 season, Reinhart scored just three goals in the first 19 games he played before finishing the season with a career-high 33 goals. Last season, Reinhart didn’t find the back of the net until Game 13. He finished the regular season with 31 goals and added another eight in the playoffs during Florida’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals.
There was no early drought this year. Reinhart scored at least one goal in six of Florida’s first eight games. He has found the back of the net in 17 of 36 games entering Tuesday. His 10 power-play goals lead the NHL. His six multi-goal games are tied for third in the NHL.
So what has changed about how Reinhart has played? Not much, according to his teammates.
“I can’t say there’s any difference,” said Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, who centers Florida’s top line with Reinhart and Evan Rodrigues. “Obviously, he’s scoring a lot of goals and getting a lot of points, but he’s always been very reliable on both ends of the ice. He’s always there in the crucial moments in the game. He’s one of the smartest guys I’ve seen play hockey. He knows what to do on the ice. He knows where to go, how to read off me. That helps me a lot to have a player like him playing with me that knows where I’m going and. He’s just an incredible player.”
The chemistry on Florida’s top line certainly has helped, though. When Reinhart, Barkov and Rodrigues are on the ice together at full strength, the Panthers are outscoring opponents 24-5.
“The support’s there with those two guys because everyone wants the puck and everyone wants to be the one making the play,” Reinhart said. “That’s been a big factor.”
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