Florida continues to get contributions from All-Star forward Sam Reinhart, who is on an absolute heater this month
Pittsburgh hasn’t always been the friendliest of cities for the Florida Panthers to visit over the years.
Between the hostile environment and the way the officiating went all night, Friday felt like it should’ve been another forgettable evening in the ‘Burgh.
But these aren’t your parents’ Florida Panthers.
The Cats dug deep, doing their best to stay composed while killing off an avalanche of power plays, earning a hard-fought 3-2 shootout victory.
It was far from a traditional game, with anger and animosity among the players coming to the surface early and often, with things reaching a head during the second period when Penguins defenseman Kris Letang temporarily knocked Florida captain Sasha Barkov out of the game with a check into the boards that was called for interference.
The game had already been chippy, but that hit, and Letang’s refusal to drop the gloves with any Panthers for the rest of the night, led in one way or another to Pittsburgh earning six consecutive power plays during the final 40 minutes.
Here are the takeaways.
Managed a strange game well
The lack of even strength hockey kept this game from generating any kind of flow, instead sputtering along with power plays and lopsided shift numbers as both teams leaned heavily on their special teams units.
No matter to the Panthers, as Paul Maurice’s bunch continue to come away with wins despite games not only going the way they’d like.
Florida has grown into an incredibly deep, well-rounded and mature team, confident that they can find ways to beat you no matter the type of game it ends up being.
“It was awesome,” Maurice said of his team’s effort on Friday. “You're on the road, and we haven’t had a whole lot of rest this month. We have over 15 minutes of penalty killing, which is a grind, and I think we had about three minutes of power play. We handled it incredibly well. I thought they were a confident group killing (penalties), I liked their third (period) best of all, which is a good sign because you're wearing half your bench out and the other half is freezing to death, but we we're good in the third. I liked the way we played.”
Team stands up for one another
One thing that we’ve seen time and time again from this Florida group is that they are an incredibly tight-knit team.
The Panthers are quick to come to each other’s aid on the ice and do not take kindly to cheap shots or unnecessary hits.
There have been several instances this season of a Panthers player or players making amends for what an opponent did to one of their teammates.
Friday night was no different.
While Florida’s aggression toward the Penguins may have resulted in two or three extra Pittsburgh power plays, the Panthers were sure not to make a mess that they couldn’t clean up.
At the end of the day, this hockey family is not going to stand anyone taking shots at their brothers.
“They take care of their own, and then we got the kills that we needed to off that,” Maurice said. “They care about each other.”
Controlling in-game emotions
Maurice has spoken many times over the past two seasons about how good of a bench Florida has.
There have been games where Maurice hasn’t had to say much at all, instead explaining the bench takes over and, for the most part, manages itself.
Friday wasn’t that kind of game, but it did provide another opportunity for the Panthers to show why they’re able to perform well under any and all circumstances.
“It's too bad you can't be down on the bench to hear the bench because it's intense and supportive, funny as hell, wired, angry…it's emotional,” Maurice explained. “And I know that you have to be careful about letting your emotions get the better of you, but we would rather have a night of that than trying to wind guys up to play hard in the sport of hockey, and you don't have to wind these guys up, they come wired to the game.”
Bonus Takeaway: Another big night for Reino
Yes, the physicality and resulting penalty-fest were the big stories of Friday’s win, but we can’t not mention Sam Reinhart.
The run he’s on its something special.
Reinhart scored another power play goal on Friday, his 19th of the season, which leads the NHL by a wide margin (second place is Valeri Nichushkin with 13).
Since the calendar flipped to 2024, Reinhart has been on some kind of run.
In 12 games this month, Reinhart has scored 13 goals. He’s also scored in each of Florida’s past eight road games, and he’s doing all this while, over the past couple weeks, playing on a different line without Barkov as his center.
“He is an unbelievable pro because he's completely unselfish,” Maurice said of Reinhart. “Barkov goes out of the lineup, (Reinhart) goes with the two young guys that he's played with before, he's successful with them, but he's not looking at me every second shift, ‘When do I get to go back with Barkov?’ He goes out and he just plays his game and plays hard, and those other two kids played great tonight. He’s just such a leader, so unselfish, and I'm glad that he gets rewarded for it. So in some ways, there's no sacrifice to him because he's still scoring for us.”
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