Florida has won six straight playoff games, unfazed by pressure of Stanley Cup Playoffs
Florida has won six straight playoff games, unfazed by pressure of Stanley Cup Playoffs
The deeper teams get in the playoffs, the more they generally look to simplify things.
As the wins mount, and clubs draw closer to the proverbial mountaintop, the pressure around them can grow exponentially.
The Florida Panthers have done a good job not being impacted by any of the weight that comes with making a run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
They didn't flinch when facing the league's best regular season team in the first round, and not even after falling behind 3-1 in the best-of-7 series.
Florida's players and coaches have continued to do their thing, day in and day out, and it's helped them maintain a level of calm, cool and collected at a time when not getting too high or too low is essential.
It's that daily, predictable grind, keeping things comfortable and reliable, that has helped the Panthers maintain their steady, successful pace.
"Our mindset really doesn't change from game to game or day-to-day," said Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk. "We have our routine. Today was a practice day. We get what we can today, get a little workout and come back tomorrow and be prepared to win a game."
On Wednesday Florida will host the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 4 of their second-round series.
So far, the Panthers have won each of the series' first three games and are hoping to complete the first four-game sweep in franchise history.
Considering Florida got into the playoffs during the final week of the season and qualified as the second Wild Card team, expectations weren't particularly high regarding the Cats' playoff aspirations.
That's all out the window now.
The Panthers shocked the hockey world with their seven-game victory over the league-best Boston Bruins and are now one win away from reaching the conference finals for the first time since 1996.
"I guess it's one of those things where I don't think we see ourselves now as being either an eight-seed or coming close to not making playoffs," said Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour. "We're just worrying about the day by day, what success we've brought and how we're playing."
So far, the success has been frequent, and how they're playing is exceptional.
Entering Wednesday's Game 4 against Toronto, the Panthers have reeled off a franchise record six straight postseason wins.
While some may think that with each victory would come additional stress and pressure as the Cats clawed their way closer to Lord Stanley's Cup, it's almost felt like the opposite.
"We try to enjoy it, it's the best time of the year, to be honest," said Panthers defenseman Gus Forsling. "It's a lot of fun to be around the boys here, and we have a good feeling in this group right now."
Florida is a team that went through the ringer this season.
They survived injuries to top players like Aaron Ekblad, Sam Bennett and Patric Hornqvist, while Anthony Duclair sat out until late February recovering from offseason Achilles surgery.
Others were sidelined by severe illnesses, with Sasha Barkov and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky separately having to miss several games while drained of their energy and in need of fluid intake.
The Panthers' road-heavy first half of their schedule made things that much more difficult for a team also learning new systems from a new coaching staff.
They endured it all. These Cats have earned their stripes.
All the hard work and effort put in over the past nine months is now paying off in a big way, as Florida is not only playing its best hockey of the season, but they're doing it without appearing to suffer from any of the mental wear and tear that generally comes at this time of year.
"It just has to be the truth, there's no sense of walking around confident when you have no reason to be confident," said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. "At the same time, people can feel the truth. We've had some grumbling days here, hard days."
It's surviving those difficult times that have made Florida a strong, assured and poised hockey team that finds itself one win away from its second improbable upset.
"It doesn't matter if it's Game 1 or if it's Game 7 or if it's anything, we're a loose group in the sense of we're just in the moment, where we're not really allowing anything else to get in the way of our thinking here," said Tkachuk. "We're just coming to each game and doing everything we can to try to win. We're preparing right, and just it's pretty simple. We're not overthinking it, we're not taking it too easy. We're just here to win the game."
Added Montour: "Yeah, we're up in the series, but our mentality is that Game 4 is like a zero-zero series and we're chasing that next win. So I know that (Toronto is) obviously going to come extremely hard and we're prepared for whatever comes in that aspect, but the guys in that room are excited for that challenge. We just got to keep going day by day and collecting all these wins."