Improvements on penalty kill have been crucial to Panthers success against Toronto

Florida's penalty kill struggled mightily during first-round series against Boston

The Florida Panthers have done quite a few things right in order to accomplish the success they’ve had thus far during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

An area of Florida’s game that did not look so good during the team’s opening-round victory over the Boston Bruins was the penalty kill.

Boston entered the playoffs with a respectable power play.

They were twelfth in the league during the regular season, operating at a 22.2% success rate.

Then came the first-round series with Florida.

Over the seven games, Boston was granted 27 power plays and they scored on 11 of them.

That’s a success rate of 40.7%.

Somehow, despite the dominance by the Bruins when up a man, Florida escaped the series with a seven-game upset win.

If the Cats wanted to continue their improbable playoff run, however, something needed to change in the penalty killing department.

Enter Toronto, a team that, on paper, has a much scarier power play than Boston.

During the regular season the Leafs operated at a 26.0% success rate when up a man, good for second-best in the NHL. Only the Edmonton Oilers and their record-breaking 32.4% on the power play was better.

Yet somehow, someway, the Panthers have started the series a tidy 1-for-7 on the penalty kill.

While a good amount of the credit goes to Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who has stopped all four high danger shots the Leafs have generated while up a man, the defense in front of him has also been better.

Bobrovsky has stopped 14 of Toronto’s 15 power play shots, but not a single one of them has come on a rebound.

Per Natural Stat Trick, Bobrovsky has not faced any rebound shots, or shots off the rush, while Florida was shorthanded.

Florida’s defense in front of Bob has stiffened, keeping loose pucks away from the lethal Leafs sticks when their goalie has been most vulnerable.

As it turns out, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said it wasn’t about trying to do something different that led to the Cats’ seemingly improved penalty kill.

It was more about settling down and getting back to what they’d been working on all season.

“Almost all adjustments are back to form,” Maurice said. “It's not that we changed something, we used to try to kill this way and now we're trying to kill it different way.”

No, Florida isn’t trying to implement a new penalty killing tactic in the second round of the playoffs.

There have been pockets of the season with the Panthers performed well on the PK, and when looking deeper into why, it often comes down to the simplest of things.

“It's almost always go back to the basics,” Maurice said. “We've won a few more faceoffs, blocked a few more shots, and our goalie has been that good, and that edge is what penalty killing is all about.”

Ultimately, the best way to keep Toronto’s power play off the scoreboard is to stay out of the penalty box.

It’s something that has been discussed ad nauseum both during the regular season and now, as the playoffs have marched on.

If the Panthers had found a way to limit their penalty taking during the Boston series, Florida may not have fallen into a 3-games-to-1 hole.

Speaking about the penalties earlier this week, Maurice acknowledged that the stick infractions, the hooks and trips and high sticks, are on the players, but feels the team had earned a certain reputation in recent years for acting a certain way with the officials that the current group is suffering the effects from.

“We were a team, sadly, like when I went into Winnipeg, it was a team that previously had barked a lot about everything, and we were that team last year,” Maurice said after Game 1 in Toronto. “So we’ve got to take it on the chin a little bit to earn the reputation that we're right. We can accept that.”

Toronto has had seven power plays between Game 1 and Game 2.

The Panthers apparently aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt from the officials on the fringe calls, so they have to do their absolute best to cut down on the stick penalties.

While yes, it’s nice they’ve been able to hold the Leafs to just one power play goal, Toronto has gotten plenty of zone time and several good looks on Bobrovsky.

The Panthers are playing with fire, and they know it.

“These guys are dynamic,” Maurice said. “They will change position, they will look off the most obvious next play, so it's been a real challenge.”

Florida now returns home for Game 3 on Sunday with two big road wins in the bank.

Staying out of the box will go a long way toward the Panthers claiming another victory and putting a stranglehold on the series.

So will reestablishing a home ice advantage.

While the Cats have been a very successful road team so far during the postseason, they’ve only played three of their nine playoff games at FLA Live Arena, winning just one.

“When you get out on the road, especially with the intensity of the playoffs, if you win one fairly early, the road becomes a real good place,” said Maurice. “But I'm really glad to be going home.”