For very good reason, we’re used to talking about the Florida Panthers in the context of what they do in the spring. They are, after all, the two-time defending Eastern Conference champions who hung a 2024 Stanley Cup banner just a few weeks ago. Remove Florida’s five-game loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 final and the Cats’ post-season record in each of the past two playoff seasons is 28-12.
Nothing is more important than what the Panthers have been able to do at the end of the hockey year. That said, it’s definitely worth highlighting what this team has done for two straight Octobers now.
Twelve months ago — coming off hockey heartbreak and a very short summer — the Panthers entered the year without top defencemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour. After losing two games out of the gate, they went 12-3-1 in their next 16 to not only survive without two key D-men, but make sure they were thriving when Ekblad and Montour returned.
Well, Montour is not there this year, either, because he’s busy skating for his new team in Seattle. This time out — coming off two consecutive truncated off-seasons — the Panthers lost captain and top centre Aleksander Barkov for a stretch at the beginning of the year. Even for a team as good as the defending champs, it would be easy to understand if they took a little stumble operating on fumes and without the services of one of hockey’s best two-way forwards.
Yeah, not happening.
Barkov returned to the lineup a week ago and, soon thereafter, was off to his native Finland, where Florida won two weekend games to complete a Suomi sweep of the Dallas Stars. Playing in his hometown of Tampere, Barkov had himself a four-point game on Friday before the Cats came back and spanked the Stars again 24 hours later.
Florida has now won five in a row, with just one 60-minute loss in its past 10 outings. It has beaten the Stars — viewed as one of the top contenders in the West — twice and the New York Rangers — the team the Panthers defeated in the 2024 East final — in the Blueshirts’ home rink.
Sam Reinhart, who seemed destined for a fall from last year’s 57 goals, is on pace for 63 this year with a league-leading 10 in 13 games (Nikita Kucherov and Kirill Kaprizov also have 10). Barkov’s fellow Finn and centre Anton Lundell has taken the offensive step many anticipated for him with 13 points in 13 contests. On the back end, Gus Forsling is playing a team-high 23-minutes a night while producing like a 50-point defenceman. In goal, Spencer Knight has a .902 save percentage and may yet be a guy who can take the reins from Sergei Bobrovsky after the 2025-26 season. Until then, Knight can capably play 35 games in the regular season and keep the veteran Russian primed for the post-season.
Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk have both missed at least five games and it hasn’t slowed the Cats one bit. Off the ice, they’ve already inked Carter Verhaeghe and dream-fit coach Paul Maurice to extensions. Is there any doubt in your mind that pending-UFA Sam Bennett — who, by the way, has eight goals this season already — will be the next guy to put pen to paper?
All that is why nobody is going to want to see this team when it’s at its nastiest best come April. But what the Panthers have been doing at the start of the NHL calendar — despite some adversity and surely some fatigue — is also going a long way to ensuring they’re rested and enjoying last change when it’s time to play the games that matter most.
Weekend Takeaways
• Speaking of Barkov, how about the show the Finns put on in their native land? Seven Finnish players on Dallas and Florida combined to record 12 points in the two Global Series games. The only guy playing on home soil to get shutout was Stars centre Roope Hintz.
• Of the 16 teams that made the playoffs last season, I’m not sure there was one people were more willing to scratch out for this year than the Washington Capitals. It’s not to say the Caps looked like a lousy squad, but they were life-and-death to make it last year and it was just tough to know what you were hanging your hat on this year. Even with a loss on Sunday to the scorching Carolina Hurricanes, Washington has been a wonderful surprise out of the gate. Alex Ovechkin, who didn’t score in his first three contests this year, is now filling the net. Ovie has goals in four straight and seven in his past eight games. He’s 34 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time mark and is burying pucks at a 52-goal pace. This could really happen before the end of the year. Odd as it is to say about the guy who’s been in the middle of everything for Washington for 20 years, though, it almost feels like Ovie is a fun sideshow to the other developments in D.C. Dylan Stome’s continued offensive growth coupled with Connor McMichael’s breakout is giving this team an arsenal of top-six weapons. By the way, those top two lines also include six-foot-four Tom Wilson (six goals in 11 outings this year) and six-foot-six Aliaksei Protas, who’s been a point-per-game player this year. Even if the behemoth of a Belarussian can’t keep up that level of production, he’s looking like a third-round steal. And the Caps are looking like a team everybody needs to take seriously.
• It felt like things were reaching a boiling point in Boston before the weekend, but two Bruins wins — both shutouts, no less — over Philadelphia and Seattle should help things cool for now. Of course, there’s still going to be some fallout over Jim Montgomery — the coach some thought might not survive the weekend had it brought two losses — benching David Pastrňák for the third period of Sunday’s victory over the Kraken. We’re just not used to this much drama in Beantown.
• It’s early, but seeing the Colorado Avalanche and the Nashville Predators sporting the worst two points percentages in the Central Division is jarring. The Preds, handed Colorado its third straight loss on Sunday with a 5-2 victory that included a couple empty-netters, have obviously been trending up since losing five straight to start the season, but both of these clubs are already in serious trouble when it comes to securing a playoff spot.
The Week Ahead
• The Jets 1.0 will face Jets 2.0 for the first time as Utah HC when the Hockey Club visits Winnipeg on Tuesday night. Get ready, Utah; since Oct. 18, the Jets 2.0 have been averaging 5.44 goals-per-game.
• Wednesday night brings a tasty Pacific Division tilt between the Oilers and Golden Knights. Vegas has eight wins on the year, but not one of them has come away from home.
• In Year 20 as NHL players, Sidney Crosby and Ovechkin will meet for the first time this season in Washington on Friday night. Crosby is on pace for 88 points, while Ovechkin is tied for the league lead in goals (seven) since Oct. 19. These two…
• It’s Hall of Fame Weekend in Toronto, where the Leafs host the Detroit Red Wings on Friday and another Original Six rival, the Montreal Canadiens, on Saturday. On Monday, the Hall will induct Natalie Darwitz, Pavel Datsyuk, Jeremy Roenick, Shea Weber and Krissy Wendell-Pohl in the player category. Colin Campbell and David Poile will go in as builders.
• Saturday’s slate is full of fun, with Linus Ullmark making his return to Boston as a member of the Senators and the Oilers and Canucks clashing for the first time since Edmonton’s Game 7 win in Round 2 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Winnipeg Jets (11-1-0) Nik Ehlers, a player many thought could be moved this past summer, became the highest-scoring Dane in the history of the NHL with a monster six-point weekend, including a hat trick on Friday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Ehlers, who is tearing it up this year ahead of potentially hitting the open market in July, now has 474 career points, one more than the 473 posted by countryman Frans Nielsen.
2. Vancouver Canucks (5-2-3) Here’s hoping Dakota Joshua, who announced he had testicular cancer just before training camp opened, returns to the lineup this week in California.
3. Edmonton Oilers (6-5-1) Boy, the Oilers missed Zach Hyman’s goal-scoring. The winger’s second of the year — which came on a third-period power play — on Sunday night was the GWG in a 4-2 triumph in Calgary, as the Oilers improved to 2-0-0 without Connor McDavid.
4. Toronto Maple Leafs (6-5-2) One power-play goal, scored by the Leafs Sunday night in a 2-1 loss to the Wild, is at least a start for this befuddlingly bad Toronto man-advantage.
5. Ottawa Senators (6-5-0) All the goalie talk in Ottawa is centred on Linus Ullmark, but Anton Forsberg earned his second whitewash of the year on Saturday during a 3-0 blanking of the Kraken. Forsberg sports a tidy .910 save percentage this season.
6. Calgary Flames (6-5-1) There hasn’t been a ton to cheer about recently for Calgary, but Friday’s 3-0 win over old friend Jacob Markstrom and the Devils had to feel good.
7. Montreal Canadiens (4-7-1) Meet the team with the second-worst goal-differential in the league (minus-17). Only the Sharks’ minus-18 is worse.
from Sportsnet.ca
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