Florida Captain Sasha Barkov set a new franchise record, skating in his 672nd game with the Panthers

The Florida Panthers are starting to find their stride.

Displaying the tight-checking, physical style they played to perfection during last year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Panthers frustrated the Detroit Red Wings for much of Thursday’s game and came away with a well-earned 2-0 victory.

After starting the season with consecutive road losses, Florida has now gone 5-1-1 in its past seven games. 

Leading the way for the Panthers was goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who continued his career dominance of the Red Wings.

Bob entered the game holding a 24-6-1 career record when facing Detroit, along with a sparking 1.87 GAA and tidy .937 save percentage.

Those trends would continue, with Bobrovsky making 22 saves to earn his first shutout of the season.

As for the rest of the game, it was another strong start for the Panthers.

They were all over Detroit during the early stages of the first period, recording the first nine shots of the game and dominating puck possession.

The Red Wings would start evening things out thanks to a questionable tripping call on Dmitry Kulikov. They didn’t score on the power play, scoring chances began to level out.

Speaking of power plays, boy where there a lot of them during the second period.

In fact, there were six. Three for each team, though exactly none of them resulted in a goal.

The scoreboard would finally get cracked by a very odd-looking goal from Panthers forward Steven Lorentz.

It was an innocent enough shot, but it hit off Detroit goalie James Reimer’s glove and fluttered in the air before hitting the crossbar, Reimer’s backside and his left skate before finally sliding into the goal.

Hey, they’re not all Rembrandts.

A tightly contested third period would result in only a handful of chances either way during the first ten minutes, but things eventually opened up as the Red Wings added more desperation to their game.

A pair of late power plays, one for each side, would add some excitement to the home stretch, but ultimately it was Bobrovsky and the Panthers who held on for the win.

Anton Lundell, who has played his best hockey of the season during Florida’s past three games, was rewarded with his first goal of the season, an empty-netter that came off a great play and primary assist by Matthew Tkachuk.

Here are some thoughts and observations from Thursday’s game in Detroit:

Major stick taps to Panthers Captain Sasha Barkov, who set a new franchise record by skating in his 672nd game with the team.

Barkov’s line, with him centering Evan Rodrigues and Sam Reinhart, was humming once again. While they didn’t end up on the scoresheet, the line controlled the majority of even strength play and held a 3-1 edge in scoring chances when on the ice.

Florida was quite good in the faceoff circle Thursday night, winning 63% of the draws. Barkov (12-of-14) and Lundell (8-for-13) led the way.

Another thing the Panthers did well was contain Detroit’s high-flying top line. The trip of Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond were held to zero points and six shots on just 11 attempts. 

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