Florida hasn't surrendered a power play goal over its past three games

There was a postseason feel to the Florida Panthers 2-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.

Florida has excelled at playing a grinding, physically demanding style of hockey, and they did so much to the chagrin of the Red Wings in their home barn.

It also helps that the Panthers continued to get excellent goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky, who made 22 saves while picking up his first shutout of the campaign.

Good times are on the horizon for Florida, with injured defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour nearing a return to the lineup.

Despite missing the two blueliners, and center Sam Bennett, the Panthers have rounded into a solid team that is finding ways to win.

Florida is now 5-1-1 over its past seven outings heading into Saturday’s matchup in Chicago with Connor Bedard and the Blackhawks.

Before we get to the fun in the Windy City, here are THN’s three takeaways from the win over Detroit.

Bob Rock Solid

Florida continues to get consistently good play from its goal crease, and leading the way has been starter Sergei Bobrovsky.

He came into this game with a lot going for him. Bob was off to his best start to a season since joining the Panthers, and he had an excellent track record against the Red Wings.

None of that changed on Thursday at Little Caesars Arena.

Bobrovsky made 22 saves en route to the spotless 2-0 win.

It was his 25th career win over the Red Wings, and fourth time shutting them out.

“He looks like he finished (last season),” Maurice said. “I know we're playing, in some ways, a better game than that we played for him probably in the last couple of months there. We're giving him a little bit better chance, but he's been good, and he looks right on.”

Bottom Six Mix

Maurice did some shuffling of his bottom six ahead of Thursday’s game, having Kevin Stenlund center Eetu Luostarinen and Nick Cousins while deploying a fourth line of Steven Lorentz flanked by Ryan Lomberg and Will Lockwood.

The new groupings did well to muck things up for the usually speedy Red Wings, combining to allow only four shots against while at even strength, according to Natural Stat Trick, while recording four scoring chances to Detroit’s five, and two high-danger chances to the Wings’ three.

Florida’s fourth line was also responsible for the game-winning goal scored by Lorentz late in the second period.

Overall, it was exactly what Maurice was looking for from the group.

“We have to grind a little bit,” Maurice said. “Scoring is not easy for us right now, and that's fine. We learned how to battle and grind and keep games tight, and then not give us much up. I mean, we're a pretty good defensive team right now with a lot of new faces in our lineup, so I think we're pretty pleased with where we're at.”

Cats PK Comes Up Big

The Panthers came into Thursday’s game having only taken one minor penalty in each of the past two games. That changed in Detroit, when the Cats gifted the Red Wings not one, not two, but five power play opportunities.

That might’ve seemed worrisome considering the Panthers were at the bottom of the league when it came to penalty killing, but Florida went a perfect 5-for-5 while down a man in Detroit.

Maurice said there were several factors that went into the successful penalty killing efforts.

“We won a bunch of faceoffs. Our faceoff numbers were really good, and that's a 12-to-15 second clear every time you can win and get one down, so the faceoffs were the driver, and the blocked shots (too),” Maurice said. “I think our penalty kill feels a lot like our power play. The numbers aren't very good at all, but we've been perfect in our last three games. I think our expected goals is actually pretty solid. It's like our expected goals and the power play is really solid. So that's what coaches do, when the analytics shed a good light, we talk about analytics. They battled hard. We won faceoffs, they blocked shots, and we got saves. That's penalty killing.”

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