There has been no shortage of obstacles for the Florida Panthers to maneuver during their first month of the NHL season.
Between injuries to key players and a fairly extensive travel schedule, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see the Panthers fall into the underachieving category with teams like Colorado, Boston, Nashville and Edmonton.
That’s not what this team is about, though.
Florida GM Bill Zito and Head Coach Paul Maurice have built a team that can not only survive, but maintain despite playing without a Sasha Barkov or a Matthew Tkachuk.
One of the reasons the Cats have been able to skate to an impressive 9-3-1 record despite the aforementioned complications has been their strong special teams play.
Under Maurice, the Panthers have become one of the more formidable teams to play at even strength. The ability to roll four lines and come at opponents in waves of physicality and suffocating defensive play takes a toll.
During the early part of the season, with Florida’s roster far from full strength, the team’s five-on-five game didn’t have the same intense consistency.
That’s where specials teams helped keep the scales tilted in favor of the Cats.
Currently, both Florida’s power play and penalty kill are ranked inside the NHL’s top ten.
The Panthers penalty kill, fifth-best in the NHL entering play Tuesday, has been among the best in the league all season, proving to be incredibly reliable despite missing perhaps the team’s best penalty killing forward (Barkov) and a free agent added particularly to help on the PK (Tomas Nosek) for much of the year.
Stepping up at forward have been the expected guys – Anton Lundell, Sam Reinhart and Eetu Luostarinen – while new additions Jesper Boqvist and A.J. Greer have provided some solid minutes while shorthanded.
“I think our penalty kill has been very consistent this season without an elite killer on it,” Maurice said.
Defensively, the main four blueliners on the PK have been Gus Forsling, Aaron Ekblad, Niko Mikkola and Dmitry Kulikov. Nate Schmidt has seen some time on the penalty kill, as did Uvis Balinskis, who basically does whatever Maurice asks of him (and does it well).
It’s been on the power play where Florida has found the most trouble trying to find consistency.
Between the injured forwards and working in new defensemen on both units, it’s taken a bit more time.
The Panthers began the season 0-for-9 and 2-for-18 on the power play before starting to turn the tide.
They have scored on seven of their past 17 man advantages since.
The group is now up to eighth in the league, operating at a 25.7% success rate.
Defenseman Adam Boqvist saw time on the top power play unit earlier in the season, but lately it’s been Balinskis running the show.
The second power play group, which generally utilizes two defenseman instead of one on the top PP, has been running with Ekblad and either Forsling or Schmidt.
“The power play has had the most change in personnel, without Matthew (Tkachuk) and Sasha (Barkov) on it. I like the pace and speed of it. We’ve got a new guy up top now with Balinskis there, so there’s more to learn with the power play, but I’m very pleased with the pace of the group.”
With the Panthers now taking on a more traditional schedule and skating with a fully healthy group, it will be interesting to see if the special teams units can build on their early season success.
Next up for the Cats is a Thursday night date with the Nashville Predators at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.
Puck drops at 7 p.m.
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