The Florida Panthers had been capable of take a commanding 2-0 collection lead within the Jap Convention Last on Thursday after a dominant 5-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Listed below are some key takeaways from their win as they’re now simply two wins away from a 3rd consecutive journey to the Stanley Cup Last.
This was scientific precision by the Panthers
The Florida Panthers despatched a message of their Sport 1 win.
They expanded on it in Sport 2.
Let’s maintain one factor in thoughts right here: The Carolina Hurricanes are an excellent hockey group, and so they have been an excellent hockey group for a number of years. They constantly win a playoff collection or two yearly, they’ll compete with anyone and so they do just about every part properly. That is no pushover hockey group. And Florida is totally dominating them. Crushing them. They’re making it look straightforward.
All of that could be a testomony to only how nice this Panthers group is — and the way a lot better it has been than all people else within the NHL the previous three years.
Not solely did they rating 5 targets towards one of many NHL’s greatest defensive groups, however they restricted the league’s greatest volume-shooting group to a season-low 17 photographs on objective. It’s only the fourth time all 12 months (82 common season video games and 12 playoff video games) that Carolina didn’t register at the least 20 photographs on objective in a sport.
Their stars shined offensively as Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe all recorded three factors, Matthew Tkachuk had three and beginning goalie Sergei Bobrovsky recorded his third shutout of the playoffs.
It is nonetheless laborious to think about anyone beating this group 4 occasions in a seven-game stretch.
Now Carolina has to beat them 4 occasions in a five-game stretch. That simply looks like an impossibly tall process.
Panthers proceed to be street warriors
By taking the primary two video games of the collection on the street, the Panthers continued their street dominance and improved to 7-2 away from south Florida this season.
They’ve additionally gained their previous 4 street video games in quite decisive vogue, outscoring Toronto and Carolina by a 22-4 margin.
