Florida will look to take a 2-0 series lead with a pair of road wins for the second straight conference final
The Florida Panthers couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Eastern Conference Finals.
They have already stolen away home ice advantage from the New York Rangers thanks to Wednesday’s 3-0 victory by Florida in Game 1.
Now the Cats will look to take a commanding 2-0 lead before playing a home game when they take the ice for Game 2 at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.
Florida played a strong all-around game, limiting the Rangers’ opportunities and time while controlling the majority of puck possession, but it was far from the kind of comfortable win that the final score would suggest.
“There wasn't a lot of great offense – if you're looking at A chances, based on the two breakaways they got they may have had the edge – because it's a grinder both ways,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “From the bench level, it doesn't feel that the game was shut down at any point. There were a couple of stretches I think in the Tampa series and in the Boston series that I thought we felt from the bench like we had the game locked down, that they weren't going to get much in a block of time, right? They’re too good a team for you to think okay we're gonna win this game. I didn't feel that (in Game 1) because the speed of it.”
Maurice did not skate the Panthers on Thursday, something the team has done throughout the postseason when playing every other day.
Both teams should be fresh when they hit the ice Friday.
During their previous series against Boston, the Panthers lost Game 1 on home ice before coming back with a dominant 6-1 victory two nights later. They ended up winning three straight by a combined score of 15-5 before closing out the Bruins in six.
Florida will be expecting to see the Rangers’ best in Game 2, and the Cats hope to be able to combat that with an increase in intensity of their own.
“We won Game 1 against Tampa and then I thought Tampa played its best game the next game, and then we very probably played our best game in Game 2,” Maurice said. “So we will assume then that the loser of Game 1 plays their best game in Game 2, and we're going to have to be that good.”
Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Game 2 in New York:
Vladimir Tarasenko – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe – Anton Lundell – Matthew Tkachuk
Eetu Luostarinen – Sam Bennett – Evan Rodrigues
Ryan Lomberg – Kevin Stenlund – Nick Cousins
Gus Forsling – Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola – Brandon Montour
Oliver Ekman-Larsson- Dmitry Kulikov
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