How the Panthers, without Matthew Tkachuk, have continued to grind out key wins
No Matthew Tkachuk, no problem?
It appears that way for now for the Florida Panthers.
The Panthers entered their Saturday game against the Montreal Canadiens having gone 7-2-0 without the star winger since he sustained an apparent groin injury during the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in mid-February.
This stretch of consistent wins has allowed Florida to build a small cushion atop the Atlantic Division. The Panthers entered Saturday up four points on the Toronto Maple Leafs for the top stop in the Atlantic and have a six-point cushion on the third-place Tampa Bay Lightning with 16 games left to play.
Of those nine games, seven have come against teams who enter Saturday either in a Stanley Cup playoff or are within two points of cracking the field.
So how have the Panthers done it? These three factors have been critical.
1.) Well-rounded scoring: Florida has had 16 players score at least one goal over the past nine games. Sam Bennett and Mackie Samoskevich, a duo that has been excelling together since becoming linemates in January, have four goals apiece. Captain Aleksander Barkov has three. No one else has more than two.
Florida being able to get scoring contributions from up and down the lineup, from forwards and defensemen alike, is a testament to the team’s depth. That depth will only be fortified when Tkachuk returns and when the likes of newly acquired winger Brad Marchand (week-to-week with an upper-body injury) and top-pairing defenseman Aaron Ekblad (suspended through the regular-season and first two playoff games) return to the lineup.
2.) Superb goaltending: The Panthers lead the NHL since Feb. 22, their first game back from the 4 Nations Face-Off break, with a .942 save percentage, with Florida goalies allowing 12 goals on 205 shots against. The Panthers have three shutouts in that span and have held opponents to two goals or fewer in seven of nine games.
Sergei Bobrovsky, who moved to 10th all-time in NHL wins after stopping 23 of 25 shots in a 3-2 win over Toronto on Thursday, has done the bulk of the work. He is 5-2-0 with a .934 save percentage and a pair of shutouts in seven starts over this stretch.
Spencer Knight stopped 17 of 18 shots he faced in a win over the Nashville Predators on Feb. 25 — his final game with the Panthers before being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in the deal that brought five-time All-Star defenseman Seth Jones to Florida. And Vitek Vanecek, Florida’s new backup goaltender, had a 21-save shutout in his Panthers debut against the Buffalo Sabres on March 8.
3.) A dominant penalty kill: The Panthers have held opponents to just two power-play goals on 27 opportunities over the past nine games. That 92.6-percent success rate on the penalty kill leads the NHL over the past three weeks and makes Florida one of just two teams to have a success rate over 90 percent entering Saturday (also the Calgary Flames, at 90.3 percent).
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