By the looks of it, the Florida Panthers seem pretty intent on holding onto that Stanley Cup.
The Florida Panthers came into this playoff season a little uncertain. Their golden boy Matthew Tkachuk hadn’t found his form after an injury in the Four Nations Face Off, star defence man Aaron Ekblad was going to be serving the 2 last suspensions of his 20 game suspension run, which meant he’d be out of form, and Brad Marchand hadn’t yet found his rhythm with the rest of the team, however, a few weeks later and a lot of that seems to have turned around.
The Florida Panthers have just won the first two games of their round 3 series against the Carolina Hurricanes, and what makes it worse (for the Canes) is that they’ve won these on the road! That’s right, Florida has forced the Hurricanes to endure a total loss of 10-2 over the past two games on their home turf in the Lenovo Centre in Raleigh, North Carolina.
When asked about Florida’s dominance on the road in round 3 against the Canes, and what has helped them establish this, Canadien defence man PK Subban considered his response, “Well they’re always hungry,” he said “And especially last night they came into Carolina very very hungry, and I’ll tell you this from the very drop of the first puck, it was an all you can eat buffet. Usually at a buffet they tell you, you got to bring a plate well the Florida Panthers just pulled up a chair and they did whatever they wanted.” An all you can eat buffet is probably an apt metaphor for the game that was Bobrovsky’s third shut out of this playoff series and where Florida managed to score 1:17 into the first period!
Image via Facebook/Florida Panthers
Subban then went on to make some predictions about the resulting fate of the Hurricanes saying, “They (Florida) took their soul, they took the life right out of Carolina, right out of the Hurricanes, right out of the building and maybe potentially out of the series.” Subban is not wrong, game 3 and 4 are going to be on Florida’s home turf, where the rats will be raining down and the Canes will have to work real hard to stay in the game. “They got a tremendous hill to climb.” Subban stressed of Carolina, “This is what the Florida Panthers do to you, they do this to everyone they take the life out of you, and they’ve done that to Carolina so far they have a huge hill and mountain to climb in this series.”
Will the Florida Panthers be able to do it again and knock the Hurricanes out of the Playoff series in 4 games?
Florida’s current run against the Canes will probably be hitting Canes fans with unwelcome memories of the 2023 series. Back in 2023 the first two games took place on the Canes turf, as well. Albeit, at the time, those were slightly harder wins for Florida with game 1 ending with 3-2 and game 2 being one of the longest games in NHL history finally ending 2-1 in overtime, regardless they were still wins, and though the final was a tight match with a 3-4 end, the Panthers certainly held their own at home!
What’s different this series than 2023?
Some of the players have changed, but Florida is still functioning at the top level.
Matthew Tkachuk, who was the dominating force back in 2023 (scoring the overtime winner in that epic game 2 battle) has started to find his footing post injury recently. Bennet has been scoring consistently, Ekblad has been covering the deep end, and when he isn’t being handed misdemeanours, even Marchand is adding his class Marchand touch.
One possible benefit for the Canes is that Reinhart, who had to leave game 2 in the first period on account of an upper body injury, is likely to still be out on injury for game 3 later today. Reinhart has been a big scorer for the Florida Panthers this playoff series, bagging 4 goals and seven assists in the 14 games he’s played. Tom Nosek who replaced him in the last game will have to replace him if this is the case, and maybe, just maybe the Canes will be able to use this to their benefit.
We’ll know soon enough…
The post Take the Life Out of You”: ESPN’s P.K. Subban Makes Bold Statement Over Florida Panthers After Eastern Finals Game 2 appeared first on EssentiallySports.