Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky played in his 700th NHL game on Saturday

The Florida Panthers appear to have bounced back from a late-season funk and are humming along toward the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Saturday’s 3-2 overtime victory over the Buffalo Sabres extended Florida’s point streak to five games (4-0-1) and locked up home ice advantage in at least round one.

Now the Cats have one regular season game left to get through before the real fun begins.

Let’s get to Saturday’s takeaways:

Tale of two games

Saturday’s tilt saw the Panthers and Sabres combine to score four times in the first ten minutes and zero times for the next 50 or so.

Buffalo goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was one of the big reasons the game stayed tight, finishing with 42 saves, including stops on 13 of the 14 high danger shots sent his way by Florida on a night the Cats’ expected goals was 4.43, according to Natural Stat Trick.

“It was a funny game,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “We had lots of possession time and chances…until we overplayed our chances and didn't get pucks to the net, then it gets tilted a little bit, power play is sluggish, so now it's a tight game, and we've got something to play for. I thought we were a little tight in the first half of the third period to get through that power play, but the most important part of the game in my mind was the TV timeout, I think there was 4:04 on the clock left to go in the game, and we were right. That was dig in, spend our shifts in the offensive zone, draw the penalty. I know the fans were wanting us to take an attack play there, but we still had a minute and a half left on the power play 4-on-3 and the last thing you want to do is rip a shot off a shin pad to a breakaway and then lose the game, so they were smart to hang on to it, and it was good for Reino (Sam Reinhart) in overtime.”

Strong defending by the forwards

During Florida’s recent struggles, one of the things Maurice said needed to get cleaned up was how the forwards were defending.

The Panthers play an aggressive five-man game, whether they are with or without the puck.

When everyone on the ice is working in perfect synergy, Florida can be incredibly difficult to handle on both ends of the ice.

Florida’s forwards are back to playing on their toes, supporting the defensemen and giving the opposition minimal space to work with by constantly moving their feet and taking away time to make decisions and let breakouts and entries form.

“The first half of that game, our forwards defensively were hunting,” Maurice said. “They were knocking pucks down in the offensive zone, not letting them get anything to the blue line, we were really good there. That's a big part of us playing well defensively, so we're right. The minds are right.”

700 games for Sergei Bobrovsky

Florida’s starting goaltender hit a significant career milestone on Saturday, appearing in his 700th National Hockey League game.

Sergei Bobrovsky has been defying logic with his play over the past year, providing some of the best and most consistent puck stopping since his Vezina Trophy winning days in Columbus.

The 35-year-old veteran of 14 NHL seasons is poised to take the Panthers back into the playoffs and try to finish what they nearly accomplished last summer.

Bobrovsky is also just four wins away from hitting 400, though that accomplishment will have to wait until next season.

“Well 700 games for a goalie – that’s a full 60 to 65 minutes, and then you throw in the playoffs – that's an incredible accomplishment,” Maurice said. “And then, to at very least be at the peak of his craft, as good as he has been. It's very hard to do, at any age, to have two real strong peaks in your career, and we're certainly the benefactors of the quality of his play now.”

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