Florida riding three-game winning streak after upsetting Boston in the first round
Last season the Florida Panthers advanced past the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 1996, a remarkable 27-year gap between postseason advancements.
Florida exercising its first-round demons meant someone else would hold the distinction of longest droughts between playoff series wins.
Enter the Maple Leafs, who had not been past the opening round since 2004.
Toronto's 19-year stretch between positive postseason handshake experiences came to an end last week.
The Atlantic Division rivals now have nothing to do but look ahead as the Panthers and Maple Leafs will face off for their first playoff meeting ever, starting with Tuesday night’s Game 1 from Scotiabank Arena.
Toronto took three of four from the Panthers during the regular season, but it was Florida’s lone victory against the Leafs that proved to be the catalyst for the late-season surge that got the Cats into the playoffs.
It’s been quite the run since that night in Downtown Toronto, when Sam Reinhart tied the game with a minute to go and Brandon Montour won it in overtime, finishing off a perfect 2-on-1 pass from Sasha Barkov.
The memorable moments have come fast and furious since then, but things were taken to an entirely different level come playoff time.
"The things that you remember as a kid when you were watching playoff hockey, I don't know if it was the hockey or if it was the stories that went with it," said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice.
He makes a good point.
Maurice referenced Lanny McDonald winning a Stanley Cup with the Flames in 1989 and Ray Bourque lifting Lord Stanley with the 2001 Colorado Avalanche, two great stories of Hall of Fame veterans becoming champions at the end of their careers.
Other things that come to mind are Mark Messier’s guarantee in 1994, the Neidermayer brothers winning together in 2007, Marc-Andre Fleury’s Cup clinching save in 2009 or Jean-Sebastian Giguere winning the 2003 Conn Smythe as a losing team goalie because he was THAT good.
"All those players that are important to our game," Maurice said.
Coming back to the present, there are certainly some great stories developing around Maurice’s 2023 Panthers squad.
Matthew Tkachuk was already a superstar when he arrived in South Florida, but now he is becoming an entirely different kind of animal.
There are plenty of players who perform and put up numbers season in and season out, and not to take anything away from them, but then there are guys who also do it during the playoffs.
That’s the differentiator, what separates the men from the boys.
Tkachuk has been doing it all for Florida, both from a scoring production standpoint and when looking at those playoff intangibles.
Sure, he logged five goals and 11 points during Florida's seven-game first-round victory over the Boston Bruins, but he was also the guy first to a scrum to defend a teammate or the loudest guy (other than Ryan Lomberg) on the bench chirping away at the opposition to get under their skin.
Aside from everything Tkachuk has provided, we’ve seen the ascension of defenseman Brandon Montour, the season-saving contributions from minor-league veteran goalie Alex Lyon, the maturation of 21-year-old center Anton Lundell, the efforts from unsung heroes like Radko Gudas or Nick Cousins or Eetu Luostarinen…clearly, there is no shortage of inspiring and uplifting tales of growing success from inside Florida's locker room.
Perhaps there will be more in store during round two.
LINEUP NOTES
The Panthers are expected to roll with the same lineup and line combinations that they used during the final games of the Boston series.
Carter Verhaeghe on the top line with Barkov and Anthony Duclair, Sam Bennett centering the second line flanked by Tkachuk and Cousins, a third line of Luostarinen, Lundell and Reinhart, and then Eric Staal centering Colin White and Zac Dalpe on the fourth line.
In goal will likely be Sergei Bobrovsky.
Florida’s top power play unit has been Barkov working the point, Montour on the left flank, Tkachuk on the right, with Bennett net front and Reinhart working the slot, and they saw some solid results against Boston’s elite penalty kill.
Back in the regular season Toronto had the twelfth PK in the league, working at a 81.9% success rate, but during the playoffs they’ve successfully killed 76.2% of their infractions.
We’ll see what kind of success Florida can have after they ended up going 5-for-20 on the power play against the Bruins, good for seventh-best in the playoffs and just behind Toronto’s 28.6% man advantage success in round one.
LINEUP UPDATE
A notable development from Florida's morning skate was Alex Lyon working in the starter's net and being the first goalie off the ice.
Those are generally indicators of which goaltender is starting that night.
It's the playoffs, so Maurice and the Cats could be trying to show a little gamesmanship, but it's certainly a situation worth monitoring.
We likely won't know for sure which goaltender is starting until he leads the team onto the ice for warmups.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Anton Lundell on keys to facing the Leafs: “All their good players, take their time and space away, don’t let them feel good with the puck. We have to know who's on the ice and where they are, but overall, play together and play tight.”
Matthew Tkachuk on winning as underdogs: “What's made us very successful is, I know this might come out in a weird way, but we're kind of oblivious to the situation that we're in almost, and that's a great thing for us, staying right in the moment. That's a great thing, it just allowed us to focus one day at a time. Everybody says it, but it really did allow us to enjoy it.”
Paul Maurice on the remaining playoff field: “When you shave half the teams out of the playoff picture, you're only left with good teams. There's no bad teams left. We spend too much time going first and Wild Card and underdog, they're all good teams.”