Florida Panthers

[Lemmy]

Ahh they´ve done it. I´m still in disbelief.

The GUd: Barkov is soo crazy good, Huby woken up, Ekblad lighting it up
The Blad: Pirri 12 shots, no goal
The Ugly:Thornton still in the lineup

Bjugstad is set to return. Let´s see hope they do not seperate that 2nd line.

Get the rats ready because I think this team makes the play offs this season.

[keytolife]

The Refs tried to stop them but it didnt´work!Scrivens like usual very good vs the cats.

Win against MON. Not very often this has happend. All home games for the next month have sold at least 12k tickets. This is major as well.

The good: Sasha Barkov..., DMac is back,
The Blad:
THe Ugly:Pirri looks bad again. KUli with a brain fart moment.

[Rehdaun]

Some awesomeness from Barkov last night. 2G 1A +2 1PPG 4SOG. Can't get much better than that!

[roenick27]

Ok In Key I trust for Florida stuff. Barkov has gone beast. Since I have egg on my face, may I at least make an omelet out of it?

I need to correct your view then Barkov is already a Nr.1 C. He is one of the best defensive players in the whole NHL already and the offensive game is coming around nicley. If he is not injured bugged throughout his career he will be a stud.

[keytolife]

I can get used to this but i guess i shoudln´t.

Franchise record tied. KReider is a piece of ....

The good: Pirri was a warrior tonight, Luu was so strong so were Petro and Guds
The Blad: Jagr was meh took a very bad penalty, KUlikov brainfart moment again
THe Ugly: //

[Zorro]

Wow KEY, your boys are looking really good..

How much is Barkov going to sign for do you think??

And why do the cats have Shawn Thornton still playing?? Wow!!

[keytolife]

Wow KEY, your boys are looking really good..

How much is Barkov going to sign for do you think??

And why do the cats have Shawn Thornton still playing?? Wow!!

Hey mate.

Not sure on the first one, i think they are trying to lock him up as long as possible. 6 for 8 years is what i heard last

On Thronton nobody has a clue, but he is liked by the players and coaches. His time might come to an end when Bjugstad returns tonight,though.

[Zorro]

Hey mate.

Not sure on the first one, i think they are trying to lock him up as long as possible. 6 for 8 years is what i heard last

On Thronton nobody has a clue, but he is liked by the players and coaches. His time might come to an end when Bjugstad returns tonight,though.

Have they announced a starter for the Panthers tonight?? Will Lou be going back to back??

[rangerfan2430]

Yesterday I had a feeling that the Panthers were going to get bombed so I sat Luongo for my two other goalies. The short story is, I hate my life

[Rehdaun]

Yesterday I had a feeling that the Panthers were going to get bombed so I sat Luongo for my two other goalies. The short story is, I hate my life

I hear ya. It usually works out that way.

[rangerfan2430]

I hear ya. It usually works out that way.

The same thing happened last week. I benched Hellebuyck and he had a shutout. I've just had no luck lately

[keytolife]

9 in a row !

Bad game but Monty stole it.

The Good: Monty, Jagr, MacKenzie, Guds
The Blad: The Bjugstad line minues
THe Ugly: Bjugstad who had a very very rough game. Superbad on D. Didn´t fit the rest of the team-

[Zorro]

Wow, get those plastic rats ready!!

[rangerfan2430]

Interesting read on the Panthers

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...144956974.html

[keytolife]

Interesting read on the Panthers

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...144956974.html

Wow this must be one of the most biased articles i´ve ever read on hockey in a long time. It´s so clear that the author has not watched the games at all and is only focusing on stats and comparing them with the success of Calgary and Colorado over these last two season to find a pattern. He intentionally leaves out the differences between the teams successes and ignores the stats he needs to ignore to make this article as one-sided as possible.

I´ve decided to take 10 minutes of my time to answer this article and to put it in perspective.

No the Panthers are not a top-5 team in the NHL and the stats are slightly inflated at the moment but the Panthers are not such a "fraud" as the author makes them out to be. I don´t see the Panthers style of hockey leading to such a huge landslide in the standings than what happend with the Flames or the Avs. The main reason for that is that is that those successes came with highly unusual shooting percentages for several players while the Panthers success mainly comes from their defensive system.

But let´s walk through the article together:

He starts the game by pointing out how the Panthers were absolutely dominated against the Rangers. As a person who watched the game and have read both Rangers and Panthers boards after the game he is dead wrong on that. The Panthers actually dominated the Rangers the whole game, the only departments they dominated us were the faceoffs and the shots total. But those were very low scoring chance shots. This is the Panthers system, they have been excellent on D and give away a lot of shots but bad ones. The Panthers had far away more potential chances for other goals than the Rangers. The Rangers had zero clue what to do against our defense and opted to fire from every possible angle out of desperation in the third quarter.

Then the author of the article follows up with stating that our goal-diffrential is plus-12. It might be a mixup but our goal differential is a +21 and has been on the positive side since day one of the season.

Now the author continues to go on that the Panthers success comes from elite goaltending. And while Luongo and especially Montoya have been great this season, early in the season Luongo left in a whole lot of soft goals. The correct thing is that the Panthers had good goaltending on top of a incredibly good defense.

A stat to point that out is the Panthers record of 14-0-1 when they scored three or more goals and the league lead in not losing much points when scoring first or being tied after two quarters. They are simply good at turteling. Gallants gameplan is to score first and then slow down the game. We only got manhandlded twice this season because this team is so disciplined. THe Panthers have the lowest high quality chances for and against since Gallant has taken over.

Florida
CF% (5v5) - 47.7% (22nd)
PDO - 102.1 (3rd)
Luongo - .929 SV%, 2.09 GAA, 1861:52 minutes

Washington
CF% (5v5) - 50.1% (15th)
PDO - 102.4 (2nd)
Holtby - .932 SV%, 1.93 GAA, 1838:43 minutes

Nobody is doubting Washington defense as Holtbys numbers are even better than Luongos and he has stolen quite a few games.

Then the author brings up the 6-4 regulation stat. FOr the first time in gazillion years we are actually winning in OT or the shootout and now this stat is used against us again? Over the course of the three last years we were the team with the most loser points and got bashed in the media that we would be dead last without them and that we don´t deserve half of our points. Now we actually win ( something that needed to improve to make the next step, since we were already in most of the games last season) and we get picked on for it as well?

The author totally forget when he now blames Tallon for his FA-signings how much MItchell brought to the team last season and is still bringing leadershipwise this very season. THe Bolland situation has been adressed quite fast and i doubt he plays many more games as a Panther.

In the next section of the article the author now goes on telling us that the Panthers only got 20 points from their first 21 games. He manages to fail to notice that the Panthers where without their best player in Barkov during that timespan and had unusually low shooting percentages ( Huberdeau had 2% f.e.)

Now for the first time the author gets something right when he tells us that the team is very dependant on one line with the HBJ-line. More so on one single player: Sasha Barkov. This teams gameplan only works with that incredibly gifted 2-way center because he can shut down opposing top lines and the same time when he creates offense. If he gets injured this team will indeed fall down in the standings.

Now the author continues to use the numbers how he likes them, when he uses stats from last season to back up forecasts for this season.

I´d like to point out the main factor i consider to be an indicator of overachieving from a team and that is shooting percentage way over the NHL average. The stat the Flames and Avs were inflated like crazy over their successful seasons. Only Jagr has a 19% shooting percentage which is way too high, while Huberdeaus superbad 4,2% should cancel that out.

The Panthers offense is producing what they are supposed to produce and the main reason for the success is the defensive side of things.

Like stated i don´t expect the Panthers to be a contender but they are not as bad as this article makes them.