Rise and Grind
Florida has made a habit of winning at home in any which manner they can. If their goalie lets in a couple tough goals, they might dominate their offensive zone and score seven times. If they’re not able to control play, their goaltender makes up for it with key saves. The Cats are now 22-3-0 at home, in spite of only controlling roughly 56% of 5v5 shot attempts and all situations xG.
As you might expect, Florida is 9-1-0 on home ice when they have at least 55% expected goals at all situations other than either team having an empty net, with the one loss coming in a game that they only used 16 skaters. Over the course of a season, one might expect the team to drop a few more of these at the hands of a hot goalie, but that’s only really happened once as far as we can see here.
What’s more interesting is that the Panthers so often come out winners in the close games, where each team had between 45-55% of all situations (sans empty net) expected goals. The Panthers only lost one of these games, and only one other even went into overtime, which is fewer than in games the Panthers had 55% xG. In their only 3 sub-45% performances, the Panthers still won 2 of them; one in OT vs the Penguins, the other against the Canucks.
Stick taps to Spencer Knight, who put in another 1st-star caliber performance for the Cats after his bounceback win in Vancouver.
Star Search
When it came down to it on Tuesday night at FLA Live Arena, the Panthers’ best players were their best players. In scoring his 200th career goal and 500th career point simultaneously, Aleksander Barkov showed all his star qualities, stripping a Golden Knight shorthanded, then one-timing a bouncing puck home from an Anton Lundell pass. This sequence was by far the most pivotal moment in the game as the Panthers went on to win by only one goal (sans empty net insurance goals).
At even strength, Barkov and his linemates Carter Verhaeghe and Owen Tippett were instrumental in shutting down star Vegas forwards Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty, along with their linemate Chandler Stephenson. Barkov and his line won this battle convincingly, controlling shot attempts 12-8, shots on goal 7-2, and expected goals 0.61-0.31.
Depth players on Vegas like Zach Whitecloud and Nolan Patrick provided issues for the Panthers, so it was pivotal that the Panthers’ stars were able to take over the game in their time on ice. Give credit to Aaron Ekblad and Mackenzie Weegar here too for their roles in shutting down the Golden Knights’ top line.
The “Eye Test”
You’re clicking this link, so you probably respect my opinion on this. Give me the chance to let loose. It’s comical how overrated Anton Lundell’s penalty killing has been this year. To my eyes, it hasn’t necessarily been terrible, but I’ve rolled my eyes a number of times at the gushing that happens in the commentariat over unimpressive play. Florida gives up more goals with Lundell killing penalties than without, in addition to more expected goals, shots on goal, shot attempts, scoring chances, and high danger chances. Which has lead cries out of “No, the eye test is right, so the (objective measures of performance) must be wrong.”
Is this even based on the eye test? Or has everyone decided that Lundell is a good penalty killer and decided to tell themselves when he’s killing penalties that he’s doing great? This is one of the arguments made in Lundell’s calder case that draws a cringe out of me, but not the only one. Plus/minus anyone? His point total, when he’s on a team that scores the most goals in the league? It would be so easy to talk about the positives we’ve seen from Lundell in a 20-year old draft+2 campaign. It isn’t normal for players at that stage in their development to fit in at the NHL level, even if they’re high first round picks. We’ve yet to see much of Lundell’s draft class eliminate all doubt about their NHL impacts, including the top three picks Alexis Lafreniere, Quinton Byfield, and Tim Stützle. The question is, has he stood out at this level, especially compared to other rookies like Seth Jarvis, Trevor Zegras, Lucas Raymond, or Moritz Seider? I wouldn’t make the argument for “yes”.
On the other hand, there is offensive potential in Lundell’s game, that we’ve seen glimpses of, which are not being maximized. As a young player, he deserves more time to get acclimated to the NHL without having many pressure packed defensive responsibilities. Reputations take a while to shake, but this “all defense, less offense” and “Next Barkov” tag following Lundell should probably be taken off. Setting “Aleksander Barkov” as your expectation for a player is going to lead to disappointment almost every time.
It seems like the fact that Lundell does so well at takeaways has made people look past his meh PK play. What if we compare his PK defense to his 5 on 5 defense?