GDT: Florida Panthers vs Carolina Panthers

[Daeavorn]

we arent good enough, thats all that matters. we just cant reach that next level that the other actual elite teams do when its time to lock it down.

 

[Joe McGrath]

we arent good enough, thats all that matters. we just cant reach that next level that the other actual elite teams do when its time to lock it down.

They are 22-1-1 when leading after two periods.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

I mean with all due respect, the last few years showed that we are not evenly matched up with the elite teams of the league. Boston and Tampa made quick and easy work of us by playing the exact style of hockey that Florida used to physically dominate play tonight. 18 shots on goal by the Canes tonight with maybe 4 coming in the 3rd? That's pathetic, and yet all too familiar with the result we see against teams like this.

We will finish with a good record, with a decent chance to win the Metro, and a decent chance to make it to the Conference Finals where there's a really good chance we see a familiar ousting when we play against Florida or Tampa and the style that has been proven to overwhelm us.

Without some changes at the deadline, I'm concerned that this kind of scenario is all but inevitable.

Sitting back with the lead is not at all unusual and not necessarily the wrong approach. Florida's a very talented club. It looks worse when it doesn't work out than it looks good when it does. A disappointing finish is masking a choppy, evenly played game overall.

Re: the soft label. This is a better overall team than 19 and 20. It's comparable to 21. The regular season records point to a team that has taken a step into true contender status just recently. The sample size is not enough for that conclusion.

 

[Svechhammer]

We had 5 shots on goal over the last 2 periods of play.

 

[raynman]

I watched him bury Barkov in the last 5 minutes. He manhandled the Florida d-man and got the puck to D’Angelo for the go ahead goal. I get he’s not good right now, but tonight wasn’t that night. He was one of the better forwards on the ice in the final two periods.

Glad I’m not the only one who saw that shift. If I remember correctly he pushed barkov and the puck up the wall to get the puck out of the zone. Barkov isn’t a lightweight

 

[GoCanes2015]

We also had a goal taken away by a miraculous sliding mid-air save on the goal line by their 3rd pair D.

This. I think he actually made TWO saves on that play - the sliding one and then he reached his stick up to foil Lorentz's tip-in. Pretty incredible. All credit due for his effort - might have been THE play that won it for the Panthers.

 

[Svechhammer]

This. I think he actually made TWO saves on that play - the sliding one and then he reached his stick up to foil Lorentz's tip-in. Pretty incredible. All credit due for his effort - might have been THE play that won it for the Panthers.

We only had 2 or 3 more shots on goal the rest of the game after that play

I don't care how good of a play that was, we f***ing turtled last night. There is no amount of copium that should make it acceptable to put a combined 5 shots on goal over the last 40 minutes of play. None. We got thoroughly outplayed over the course of the entire night and did not deserve to win. In a 7 game series, that quality of play gets you eliminated in 5. Its not good enough, its simply not.

 

[Tryamw]

This. I think he actually made TWO saves on that play - the sliding one and then he reached his stick up to foil Lorentz's tip-in. Pretty incredible. All credit due for his effort - might have been THE play that won it for the Panthers.

Pretty sure it was Lorentz that had the save against Lorentz.
He hit it it fluttered and then Lorentz's stick got in the way and hit it out

 

[Svechhammer]

Its also worth pointing out that Florida played over the line last night and its kind of bullshit that we were on the poor side of the reffing, but at this point this is the expectation for our team. Teams are allowed to body the hell out of us and the second we respond we're in the box.

We need guys who can play a less than clean game who are able to get away with it. We need guys who aren't afraid to take runs at others in the open ice. We need guys who are willing to extend the elbow on every hit they make daring the refs to call each one. We need guys who are willing to blur every single line the rules allow on the ice. Because those teams win. Boston kicked our ass twice by doing just that, Tampa whipped us last year by doing it, and Florida is 3-0 against us this year, including a humbling shutdown of our entire offensive game at home last night by employing it.

Ian Cole is also a problem. He's a penalty taking machine, and routinely gets suckered into the retaliatory penalties that just kill us. Last night he was a one man parade to the box, and it was only his own fault.

 

[Daeavorn]

They are 22-1-1 when leading after two periods.

All of those games were from before the All-star break. We have not been the same team coming back from the break.

 

[chaz4hockey]

Svech...you are bringing the heat today/last night. I agree with everything you are saying.

Fl & Tampa are bad matchups for us & even Pitt or Wash may be because they are big and will pound our skill players.

Guys like Necas, Aho, TT, Jarvis (Tro last night) are being run consistently (it started with Jersey & Ottawa this year and the big boys are using the same playbook) and outside of the Boston game, no one on the squad is stepping up to address. Tro hit should have been dealt with.

The Borg needs to address this through re-deployment of resources....Martinook, Lorentz, Fast, 3rd D pair could be movable assets (Pesce has been sub-standard lately and could he be trade bait???). It's a shame that we don't have anyone ready in Chicago that has the ability to mix it up along with skill (I wonder how Chatfield is playing....he is physical)

Finally, we needed a couple of big saves from Freddie and like the Toronto game, we didn't get it.

 

[Svechhammer]

Hell will freeze over before this happens but I'd be OK with going ahead and giving Drury his spot. Let Rod teach Drury how to be a face-off king and we should be good to go.

J Staals best days are behind him. We knew that but he's really taken a plunge career wise this year and it's sad to see.

Drury showed a lot of promise in the circle earlier this year when he had his chance. I think he was on par, if not a little better than Jordo in FO% while he was up. The problem with Jordo is that, outside of his faceoff %, his lack of mobility really makes it hard to justify continuing to play him over guys who can keep up.

And, lets be honest, his contract is a boat anchor that is holding us back at the deadline and in free agency right now. The sooner we can get out from under it, the better.

 

[FlyingSquirrels]

Pesce getting a pass I see. He's been brutal, all year. Either he's out of shape or he just doesn't give a shit anymore. His skating has regressed, alarmingly so. Flops around on the ice., No toughness or physical play, just meek reaching of the stick. Maybe the tread is wearing off the tires after several years of heavy minutes, but we need to move on this offseason.

Same can be said for Staal but Rod adores him. Just let him play out his final year as a FOURTH line C next year. Kotkaniemi getting buried is so annoying to me.

 

[Svechhammer]

Svech...you are bringing the heat today/last night. I agree with everything you are saying.

Fl & Tampa are bad matchups for us & even Pitt or Wash may be because they are big and will pound our skill players.

Guys like Necas, Aho, TT, Jarvis (Tro last night) are being run consistently (it started with Jersey & Ottawa this year and the big boys are using the same playbook) and outside of the Boston game, no one on the squad is stepping up to address. Tro hit should have been dealt with.

The Borg needs to address this through re-deployment of resources....Martinook, Lorentz, Fast, 3rd D pair could be movable assets (Pesce has been sub-standard lately and could he be trade bait???). It's a shame that we don't have anyone ready in Chicago that has the ability to mix it up along with skill (I wonder how Chatfield is playing....he is physical)

Finally, we needed a couple of big saves from Freddie and like the Toronto game, we didn't get it.

From what he showed when he was here, Drury is physical and would be a good asset in a game like last night. He showed he has a certain heaviness to his game that we are currently lacking.

I really hope he gets a legitimate chance next year. He could be a huge help for us in the long run. KK also showed he was willing to throw the body and actually hit people last night rather than just impede their skating. Problem with him is that he's just not strong enough yet to make those hits count. (a year or 2 in the RBA training regime should help there).

 

[chaz4hockey]

Pesce getting a pass I see. He's been brutal, all year. Either he's out of shape or he just doesn't give a shit anymore. His skating has regressed, alarmingly so. Flops around on the ice., No toughness or physical play, just meek reaching of the stick. Maybe the tread is wearing off the tires after several years of heavy minutes, but we need to move on this offseason.

Same can be said for Staal but Rod adores him. Just let him play out his final year as a FOURTH line C next year. Kotkaniemi getting buried is so annoying to me.

Re: Pesce--Some combination of upper body injury from early in the season < he was out early Nov and missed first Panther game (concussion???)>, COVID or inability to work out/lingering issues due to shoulder surgery in 2020 are possible impactful factors.

Whatever the reason, he isn't the same player he was pre-shoulder surgery (Pesce-Skeji haven't been good lately).

 

[CanesUltimate11]

Now, I'm usually the first to point out these things don't matter, but feels like we need a patented @Navin R Slavin thread win streak where he puts periods and then says next much later. Might really calm some folks down

I will happily give up my rookie point streak for this higher magic.

 

[Stickpucker]

Florida beat us tonight playing the same style hockey that bitchslapped us in the playoffs the last 3 years. They're big, they're physical, and they can score. When we get bodied, we have no answer. Tonight, we were chickenshit in regards to the physicality. By the end of the game, our captain passed up a chance at an empty net that would have iced the game to duck a hit. And all game, we had guys lined up in the open ice, and just eased up instead of throwing the hit against a team that consistently skated through us. Predictably, this led to us committing stupid ass penalties like we saw in our elimination series each of the last 3 years, completely taking us off our game, and rendering our offense completely and utterly ineffective.

We are soft. We've always been a bit soft, but it is glaring right now. We are not going to win a Cup until we can go toe to toe with the actual physical teams in the East, and we have proven to ourselves time and time again we are incapable of doing so. At this point, its a consistent problem, and I'm not sure its something that can be fixed internally. Certainly not through the draft where we are addicted to undersized guys. A guy like Jarvis was getting ragdolled all night. Trocheck got flattened, Nino got blasted. It was so bad that they were taking runs all night at Svech, probably our only true physical player, because they knew nobody else was capable of making them pay.

As the last 3 years have shown us, when the games matter and a team is capable of bodying us like this, we will lose 4 out of 5 or 6. Its a problem.

I agree the team doesn't always deal with the physicality well. A few years ago we eeked into the playoffs but had a bit of a harder nosed team which helped in the playoffs.

I think the reason we lost last night is different than why we lost the last 2 playoffs. The last 2 playoffs were a lot about 2 things...

1 - reffing...nuff said
2- the team not doing well with a 1-2-2 forecheck where someone pressures the puck carrier, the next guys are on the half boards to cover the outlet and reverse and guys at the blue line. They need to adapt their exits and go out the middle or skate it up ice and don't and spend too much time in their zone.

Last night I think they lost specifically b/c they didn't get to the forecheck. Florida was out of their zone and on the counter very quickly and we didn't adjust.

 

[Stickpucker]

I mean with all due respect, the last few years showed that we are not evenly matched up with the elite teams of the league. Boston and Tampa made quick and easy work of us by playing the exact style of hockey that Florida used to physically dominate play tonight. 18 shots on goal by the Canes tonight with maybe 4 coming in the 3rd? That's pathetic, and yet all too familiar with the result we see against teams like this.

We will finish with a good record, with a decent chance to win the Metro, and a decent chance to make it to the Conference Finals where there's a really good chance we see a familiar ousting when we play against Florida or Tampa and the style that has been proven to overwhelm us.

Without some changes at the deadline, I'm concerned that this kind of scenario is all but inevitable.

If the team can improve for a fair cost I agree it needs to.

One main difference between this year and the last 2 is we have vezina caliber goaltending.

 

[Svechhammer]

I agree the team doesn't always deal with the physicality well. A few years ago we eeked into the playoffs but had a bit of a harder nosed team which helped in the playoffs.

I think the reason we lost last night is different than why we lost the last 2 playoffs. The last 2 playoffs were a lot about 2 things...

1 - reffing...nuff said
2- the team not doing well with a 1-2-2 forecheck where someone pressures the puck carrier, the next guys are on the half boards to cover the outlet and reverse and guys at the blue line. They need to adapt their exits and go out the middle or skate it up ice and don't and spend too much time in their zone.

Last night I think they lost specifically b/c they didn't get to the forecheck. Florida was out of their zone and on the counter very quickly and we didn't adjust.

Florida consistently screened our attacker when we dumped the puck in. Most teams we play, we can generally skate around this and it allow us to still set up an offensive attack in the zone, but for whatever reason, we were either unable or unwilling to fight through this leading to an excessive amount of wasted dump ins. When you talk about our lack of ability to forecheck, this was the main cause. Florida took away our willingness to compete in the offensive zone.

 

[hblueridgegal]

I hope I see the day that this group is comfortable being a frontrunner with a certain amount of swagger or more of a killer instinct...it has been a bit of a slow progression on that front. I really thought all of Rod's comments during the All-Star game and after re: FL as the juggernaut would be taken as a challenge and a chance to rise to the occasion. I couldn't tell if he was trying to appeal to their underdog nature with his commentary.

The jury is still out for me about how this might end which is better than last year when the tank seemed to be emptying and the not quite good enough outcome appeared a little more obvious. The whole attitude about the President's trophy still bugs. Maybe it's hard to stay motivated with the East playoffs mostly defined a few months out?

 

[Joe McGrath]

Even with all this grousing about how bad the loss was and how they didn’t play well (and they didn’t) they were still one bounce off of Hornqvists pants Away from beating one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the league in a game where they played like shit.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

That team is good. This team is good. Both teams are good. It's fine.

 

[surfzone365]

I’m still pissed about this game. Not enough expletives to be said.

 

[The Faulker 27]

That loss was the suckiest suck of the season. Moving on, but it sucked.