Three takeaways: Strange night in Sunrise ends with comeback, redemption
Overtime win proved to be challenging for Florida to maneuver for several reasons
Nobody expected an appearance from the Comeback Cats when the Florida Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 lead on Monday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, but things can change pretty quickly in the NHL.
Florida needed a late, game-tying goal from Nick Cousins – with Cats goalie Sergei Bobrovsky on the bench for an extra attacker – just to force overtime.
Once they got to the extra session, Florida dominated possession and was able to come away with a valuable two points.
It was certainly a surprising ending considering a little more than an hour earlier, the Panthers held a 3-0 lead and were controlling every element of the game.
Defensive zone efforts by Columbus turned game
The Blue Jackets finished the game with 30 shot blocks, but only four of them came during the first period.
The same first period where Florida scored 3 goals on 20 shots.
Once the Blue Jackets began to get more aggressive with how they defended in their own zone, the tone of the game shifted significantly.
“I think where it changed for us was, we had three shots blocked in the first (period) and 12 in the second,” Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice said. “Part of that is, you get all this offense chances and then you have some guys squeezing it a little around the net, especially when we stopped moving our feet. You start getting those shots blocked, and you start to feel the fact that you had a 3-0 lead with very little going against you, and then you get a little tight.”
Managing extreme swings is challenging
Maurice made a good point after the game regarding the way Columbus responded to falling behind 3-0.
You can read his full quote below, but it basically comes down to a simple thought: these highly competitive athletes aren’t wired to roll over and play dead when things aren’t going their way.
The Blue Jackets digging in and fighting back after Florida punched them in the mouth was to be expected.
While that may be easier to process and adjust on the fly by a seasoned head coach, it’s filtering that down to the players that can provide a challenge.
“When you coach enough games, you know that when you put up 20 shots on a team in the first period, the second period never looks like that. If you look at all the games around the league, you never see somebody with 70 shots against 12, right? That game get never gets played. So after the second period, now their team (feels good because) it was more of an even period and you think the world is coming to an end. How much we’re not continually dominating? It’s an NHL team that’s close to .500 coming into that game, they’ve got good players. So you’ve just got to try and relax a little bit.”
Redemption for Swaggy
It was a night of high highs and low lows for Carter Verhaeghe.
Things started going south for the man they call Swaggy late in the first period. Carrying the puck into the Columbus end with a head of steam, Verhaeghe tried to force a pass through the middle of the ice that was blocked, and immediately sent the Blue Jackets on a 3-on-1 that ended with Columbus’ Bonne Jenner scoring over the glove of Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
The goal, which was scored with 69 seconds left in the first period, brought the Blue Jackets back to within one of the Panthers after they had fallen behind 3-0.
Fast forward to the opening minutes of the third period, with Verhaeghe below the Columbus goal line. He was caught with a high hit by Blue Jackets winger Dmitri Voronkov that prompted a physical response by Florida’s Kevin Stenlund.
Verhaeghe was a little slow to get up, but despite the jarring impact of the hit, he seemed to be okay and didn’t miss any game time.
A tough three periods quickly became a much easier pill to swallow when Verhaeghe deposited an Anton Lundell rebound into the net at the 1:26 mark of OT.
“That's why he's on the ice in the in the overtime, because if he can get a break and get it on his stick, something good might happen,” Maurice said. “He had a tough night other than that. He knows it. But it's good that he gets to leave the rink feeling that he had redeemed from the turnover goal that made it 3-2 for us. But he’s a shooter, man. He finds those holes.”
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