Florida Panthers Looking to Take a 2-0 Series Lead

The Panthers impressive playoff run continued on Tuesday night when the Cats traveled to Toronto and defeated the Maple Leafs4-2 in game one of the conference semifinals. This extended the Panthers winning streak to four games after winning three straight games to close out the Boston Bruins in round one. The Panthers had a bit of a disappointing regular season but have turned up the heat in the playoffs and are looking like the team that had huge preseason hype. 

The Panthers accomplished their goal and won one of the first two road games to take back home ice advantage. Big time performances by Tkachuk and Bobrovsky along with the breakout of Montour have the Panthers in a prime position to advance. Coming back to Sunrise with the series tied 1-1 would have the Panthers feeling good, but after winning game one they’ll have the opportunity to take a commanding lead in the series if they can take game two as well. 

The Maple Leafs will be looking to bounce back and get off to a better start than they did on Tuesday. Despite an incredible home environment both inside and outside of the Scotiabank Arena, the Leafs came out flat and allowed the Panthers to jump out to a 2-0 lead. A major key for the Leafs in game two will be to score first and get their home crowd into the game again. Getting that early momentum and the energy in the building going would be a huge boost for Toronto. 

They will lean on their two leaders John Tavares and Auston Matthews to help get them back into this series. Tavares has nine points in the last ten games for the Leafs while Matthews has amassed 40 goals and 45 assists this year. The Leafs will also need to do a better job of taking advantage when on a power play. The Panthers have had problems with penalties all year and had ten penalty minutes in game one compared to just two for the Leafs. The Leafs failed to convert on any of their power play opportunities and that is a trend that can’t continue if they want to win this series and advance.

For the Panthers, they will continue to stick with what’s been working for them. The trio of Tkachuk, Montour, and Barkov with Bobrovsky in the net looked very dangerous. Tkachuk has been a star both scoring and assisting as he’s racked up fourteen points in eight playoff games while Montour’s scoring onslaught has continued deeper into the playoffs. The Panthers will need to be more disciplined moving forward. The Panthers penalty kill has been solid so far, but consistently playing a man down will come back to hurt them at some point.

Game two will take place on Thursday night at 7PM on TNT. The Scotiabank Arena will be a wild environment once again, and the Panthers will look to jump out early to mitigate the Leafs home crowd. If the Cats can take a 2-0 lead in the series, they will be feeling very confident heading back to Sunrise for games three and four.