Another strong outing for Sergei Bobrovsky, winner of six straight starts

Playing in Tampa Bay has generally not been a fun experience for the Florida Panthers over the years.

But these are not your parents’ Florida Panthers.

Florida arrived at Amalie Arena on Saturday playing their third road game in four nights but came out with a ton of energy and overwhelmed their cross-state rival, defeating them soundly 9-2.

It was a very non-traditional game in that the Panthers seemed to jump out to a big lead in the blink of an eye. The game was barely 20 minutes old, and Florida was already up by five.

Now the Panthers will return to South Florida having won five straight and nine of their past ten, which has propelled them to the top of the Eastern Conference.

Let’s get to the takeaways from an odd but fun night in Tampa:

Not a fun night for Mo

You’d think winning a game 9-2 would be an enjoyable experience for a head coach, right?

No so much with Paul Maurice.

He was obviously very pleased with the way Florida played, but on a night where the result wasn’t in question for quite a while, there are a lot of things that can go wrong at a time where you’re playing, for lack of a better term, meaningless hockey.

Fortunately for Maurice and the Panthers, they got out of Tampa with two points and without any new ailments.

“I thought it was such a strange game,” Maurice said. “For the coach, once it gets to 5-1 or 6-1, it's just no fun. There's nothing good that happens basically after, but I didn't think we came out of our structure. I thought they had a push, they’re a proud team. You get into those every once in a while, where everything goes in for you, and we’ve certainly have had a whole lot of nights, especially early this year, where the puck didn't go for us.”

Back line steps up

On a night where the Panthers were playing without one of their top pairing defenseman, Florida’s remaining blueliners made sure the team didn’t skip a beat.

And then some.

On a night the Panthers scored nine times, Florida’s defensemen had their fingerprints on seven of the nine goals.

The six rearguards combined to put up two goals and seven points on 10 shots while boasting a plus-12 on ice rating.

“Quietly, Dmitry Kulikov had maybe his best game as a Panther, and this isn't a points thing…his gap, stick,” Maurice began. “(Oliver) Ekman-Larson and (Gus) Forsling had been a really good pair early in the year together and played very well tonight. I'm not shortchanging, but Josh Mahura hasn’t played an awfully long time, he comes in and works his butt off and fits right in. That defense depth, very important for us at the start of the year this year, and it came through again tonight.”

What about Bob?

Yes, we’re giving some credit to the goaltender on a night Florida put up a nine-spot.

He gave up an early rush goal he’d like to have back and a late power play tally when his attempted poke check was a swing and a miss, but in-between Bob was quietly brilliant.

Bobrovsky finished with 28 saves and went 6-for-6 on Tampa’s high danger shots, per Natural Stat Trick.

While, yes, the majority of his saves came with Florida enjoying a sizable advantage, a 6-1 game could have quickly become 6-3 with a lot of hockey left to be played and the home team with some momentum.

The 35-year-old has now won six straight starts, allowing a total of 10 goals during the span while stopping 174 of the 184 shots sent his way (a .945 save percentage).

Still, on this night, it was the team slightly outshining the goalie.

“I thought Sergei was really good at the time when the game could have gone either way,” Maurice said. “Our gap was good and our intensity was good. Five o'clock starts you always worry about because it's coming off back-to-back nights and you're on the road for three, but we had good jump today.”

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