The Florida Panthers are not new to the intimidation tactics of the NHL players of yore. No, in fact they are re-writing them into today’s times. The post Matthew Tkachuk era for Florida, dating back to 2022 has seen the rise of a team that is a force of nature when it comes to intimidating their opponents, and their new acquisition from the Boston Bruins, Brad Marchand, fits perfectly into this culture.
Brad Marchand began the round 3 series by being handed out a misdemeanor for taking Carolina’s Shayne Gostisbehere to the ground after he purposefully swung a puck at him. In game 2, Gostisbehere made the mistake of skiing in front of Marchand, who then cross checked him causing him to fall to the ground. Marchand claims that there was no ill will here, and he didn’t even know who the player was till he fell to the ground, but the on-ice tactics tell a different story.
Credits: X/Florida Panthers
In the same game, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho checked Sam Reinhart causing him to have to walk out of the game with a lower body injury. Then came game 3 and just after Brad Marchand scored the fourth goal for Florida, Matthew Tkachuk checked Aho and pummeled him to the ground. Tkachuk might not have been great for scoring goals this off season, but his aggressor tactics are working like magic! All this is to say, that things are getting heated, and with Carolina facing elimination in game 4, they might have to resort to better intimidation tactics. However, when asked about this possibility in a recent post game interview, Brad Marchand didn’t seem too phased.
“Um you know it changes every game you know and and honestly it changes every play.” Marchand said, adding, “Um you know sometimes just the the amount of speed that a guy’s coming in at, um you know, there’s a level of self-preservation in the game, too right, so um yeah I mean you’re just, you’re not so much feeding off a guy not doing his job on the other team.” Addressing what it is players focus on instead, Marchand added, “It’s more us doing our job on our team, um you know, you have a lot of respect and uh you build guys up, when they go in and and they are playing physical and they are playing the right way and playing within our structure and system. So it’s more about what we do. That that’s I think the biggest thing that I’ve seen since being here. It’s about what we do in here and and how we build off of that.”
Clearly Marchand, like everyone else knows that when it comes to physicality, Florida knows how to do it better than anyone else, and perhaps this has been the reason that the Canes have had such a bad track record against the Panthers when it comes to the Eastern Conference final?
Why the Carolina Hurricanes Have Not Done Well in the Eastern Conference Final and Not Just When It Comes to Facing Off Brad Marchand!
The truth is, the Panthers aren’t all to blame. But with the Panthers winning game 3 of this series, the Canes have now marked their 15th consecutive conference final loss, where in 2009, 2019 and 2023, they didn’t manage to win a single game in the final round. And the losses were against Pittsburgh in 2009, Boston in 2019 (fine Brad Marchand was a common denominator here) and Florida only in 2023. In fact, when Florida did come into the picture, things were quite tight.
In the 2023 loss, Carolina only conceded 10 goals total in the series, which means that all the games were quite close, however, they allowed a bunch of overtime goals. In fact in all the 15 consecutive losses the Canes have allowed a total of 18 overtime goals. So it is maybe more than just Florida’s intimidation tactics that have the Canes flailing at this point in the playoffs, maybe it’s pressure or late season fatigue, but it is something that the Canes have been unable to turn around for a while now.
In fact,
the last time the Canes won the conference title was in 2006, just before they won their only Stanley Cup. At the time, current coach Rob Brind’Amour was playing and scored the winning OT goal. Since then, however, the Canes haven’t managed to gain control of that aspect of the game. On top of this, the Panthers’ intimidation tactics certainly can’t help. With top tier intimidators skating into you and then pummeling you into the ground, Canes players must be wondering if it is even worth it to keep on!
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