WPTV’s Mike Trim talks to Panthers play-by-play host Steve Goldstein
[Music] Heat up [Music] here. [Music] Cue that music. It’s exciting every time. To our YouTube viewers of the WPTV News Channel, thank you for joining us on Panther 360. We are live. A special time this week. We are pleased to be joined by a very special guest taking time out of this busy schedule. The man, the myth, the legend, Steve Goldstein, the television voice of your Florida Panthers. Goldie, thank you for joining us. Oh, it’s great to be on and appreciate everybody watching the show. Oh, it’s been terrific. Yeah, it’s been terrific. What has What a ride it’s been the past couple of years and the beginning of this regular season. We uh you know, hey, we saw some great games out the gate at Amir Bank Arena. Got on this road trip and uh you know, I just want you to describe for the for the folks at home, maybe the common hockey fan, not even close to time to pressing the panic button. How has this road trip gone for the team and what have you found out so far on this four games? Yeah, well, you know, the goal scoring was just tough to come by. That’s really the bottom line. I thought the goalenders, whether it was Sergey Babroski or the new goalender Denil Terasov, who looks terrific, great athletic ability and going post to post, side to side with strength. So, the goalenders were outstanding in pretty much every game except for the Buffalo game on Saturday afternoon. You know, it’s either tied or a one-goal game in the third period. I thought, you know, the power play struggled uh better on Saturday. They got a lot of shots on goal, but still didn’t find the back of the net because, you know, a power play goal here and there. Jersey game was tied. Uh the Philly game was tied, you probably get wins. So, you know, without Barov, without Kachchuck, and they’re not coming back anytime real soon. This is the team the Panthers have and these guys need to figure it out. A lot of chemistry still being worked through. I think, you know, you only have one line, Londale, Lost Arena, and Marshan that played together last year. So, I I think the coaching staff, Paul Marie, still learning about this team and maybe these guys also learning each other’s tendencies and and learning each other as well early in the season. Yeah, it seems like to say that, you know, they had such a long run together. So, so much of that core still there, but it is part, you know, after you get done with the offseason, you’re back and you’re getting the lines together, you’re jelling. Um, at Panthers 360 here, we’d like to get to know about everybody. You’re on the road with the team. How do you yourself treat a long road trip like that? What’s your daily routine like? Is it up early, late to bed? Yeah, I’m usually up early anyway. Um, obviously game nights, you know, it’s it’s pretty late to bed. It’s hard to unwind after a game, whether that’s home or the road. But, you know, look, Mike, I try to eat pretty healthy on the road. Not easy, especially when you go into places like Buffalo at the Wings. Uh, try to get up, get a workout in every morning, move, take a walk, do something. Um, but, you know, it’s for me, it’s kind of a work trip. you know, when you have the time off, you kind of take the time off and the rest of the time you’re you’re digging into the team and, you know, figuring out how you can uh you can make the broadcast the most interesting, the most informative, and the most entertaining that it can be. Really? Wow. Well, on a nationally televised game, we’re going to have uh a big game we’ve been circling on the calendar since the off season, and that is Brad Marshan’s return to Boston taking on the Bruins, the former captain lining up against this team. I asked somebody earlier like, you think he’s going to get booed or cheered? How do you view that game as as an important one in this very very early part of the season? Well, I think we’ll see a Panther team with a little bit more juice, a little bit more edge, and a little bit or maybe a lot of bit more energy in this game. You know, you go back to a place where this guy had been his entire career. You’re talking about 20 years with the franchise. You know, every player on this Panther team, they want to win that game for him because most of these guys in this Panther team, they’ve been in the same situation. Most of them have come from somewhere and they’ve always gone back to that place. So, I I think it’s going to be a spirited effort by the Panthers. I know the fans in Boston absolutely love Brad Marshian. I think there’s more frustration with the franchise that they actually let him go. And you know, big picture, you look at what the guy is doing at age 37, what he did last year in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Uh it’s amazing that they actually traded him for what they did. I thought Bill Zo and the Panthers stole Brad Marshian from the Boston Bruins. So I think it’s going to be a thunderous ovation. It’s going to be emotional for him. He’s going to want to win that game. And along with it, as tight-knit as this Panther team is, I know every guy on that team from Sam Bennett right on through, they want to get that W in his return to Boston. Yeah, you better believe that. And an extra juice for the game for sure. You know, everybody’s still pinching themselves. And we have Brad Marian for a full season, you know, Seth Jones for a full season. Then, like you said at the beginning here, there have been some line changes. Head coach Paul Maurice likes to change things up a little bit. Um, are are you seeing, you know, you mentioned one line in particular perhaps jelling, but you know, when do we start to see that jelling process where, you know, playoffs, boy, you just had almost every line the same the whole time. You know, a couple here and there shifts, but, you know, when do you see the lines jelling here in the beginning of the season and what are you seeing there? Well, I see a little bit jelly, Mike, with with um Rodriguez at center and Matthew Seamuskevich on the wing. I think those two guys with the speed and Boquist on the other side, uh, they’re starting to get some things together. You know, they’re not obviously scoring as many goals as you want to at five on five, but you know, the things you want to see is the attention to detail and get back to the structure. You know, trust the structure when you’re not scoring. You know, everybody just starts to feel that a little bit, but you still have to play the same way they’ve always played. So, look, NHL conventional wisdom, you look at a 10ame mark. Sometimes you look at a 20 game mark to see what’s going on, who plays, you know, well with who. Um I I think you’re kind of seeing some of that. You know, I also shouldn’t discount and look, injuries a part of the game, everybody’s got him, but that loss of Demetri Kulakov on the blue line is probably a little bit um more important than a lot of people see. He’s a very effective player in what they do, killing penalties, so that hurts as well. But I think you kind of look at the next couple of weeks into the month of November where you really want to see guys learn each other’s tendencies um and you know the coaching staff kind of instead of experimenting which they still are now um maybe honing in on some units on the power play they’re still trying to figure that out what works best. So I think I kind of look at between 10 and 20 games and obviously we’re not even uh really that close to 10 yet. No, it’s so early in the season. Similar records, you know, for the past two seasons is starting off, you know, give or take a few points. So, no panic button at all, especially here on Panthers 360 for the fans. Joined by Steve Goolson. You can get your comments in on our WPTV YouTube page. We’ll try to answer them as we go along with the show. So, after we finish up this road trip, we come back. Uh, no easy task. First of all, you’re getting you’re getting every team’s best shot seemingly right now. Everybody knows, everybody wants the the fans especially if not of the Panthers. They want to see the demise of the Panthers. But, you know, when you get to the home stretch that we’re about to see, you got Pittsburgh, Sydney Crosby, and then you got Vegas as well coming up soon when we’re back at Amoret Bank Arena. Um, do you think the home cooking might, you know, rejuvenate us a little bit more? I don’t know, a little more pep in our step with those lines. Well, you know, I hope so. Historically, Mike, the last few years, they’ve been just as good on the road as they are at home. Sometimes they play even better as we saw in the playoffs when they’re on the road that us against them, you know, the world mentality. I thought last week when you start breaking down each game, you mentioned it, you know, Philadelphia and New Jersey, those were their home openers. So, you knew they bring a lot to the table. Detroit was really called out by their coach after the first game. So, they played better and then they went in. I didn’t think they played close to their best game, the Panthers, but give the Buffalo Sabres credit. They were under the gun. They had lost the first three games of the year. Uh, you know how that goes. in in in a lot of markets with sports, you know, fire everybody, trade everybody. So, you take those games in and of themselves, they did get some motivated teams, but the Panthers know they need to be better. They need to be better on the for check. They need to be on the puck more. And now it’s at the point where if you look at what they’re generating offensively, those numbers are good. The expected goals are good. They’ve got to finish. And there’s no way to say it. And again, I hate to bring it up because they’re not coming back anytime real soon and injury is a part of the game, but when you take out, you know, 80 90 point players, which Alexander Barov and Matthew Kachchuck are, it is more difficult for the other guys to score. It is more difficult at center because Bararkov usually neutralizes that other team’s top center. So now you’ve got either Bennett or Landelle that maybe have to do more work defensively. So that could take away from the offense a little bit. But look, as I said, it is what it is. This is the Panther team. Uh, you know, Bararkov’s not walking through the door on Thursday night against the Penguins. We know that. So, they just need to be uh, you know, back to the structure, a little more finish around the net, get to the net more, make life more difficult for those goalenders. And, uh, always at Amir Bank Arena, as we saw the first week of the season, the Panthers do have have that juice. But again, they’ve had that on the road as well in the past. They’ll need that this season. Also, Steve Goldstein joining us here. Goldie, the voice of your Florida Panthers. Before I get you out of here, I know you’re on your off day. You’ve taken so much of your time already. I just want to ask you getting out the door here. Um, when you say it on air, back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. You’ve been the voice for so long. Are are is it still sinking in for you? Is there that moment where you feel that? It’s like it’s last year saying Stanley Cup champion was surreal and crazy and now saying back to back it is amazing. you know, this sport in full seasons. Again, not taking it away from Tampa, but they did it, you know, when CO was going on. They weren’t full seasons doing what they’ve done the last two years, especially when in the moment of truth, they want went up against the the best player in in the world in Conor McDavid, and basically shut him down for two years in a row. It is incredible. No team has played more games over a three-year period than the Florida Panthers have over the last three years. So, yes, it is incredible uh to say it and I’m glad that all the fans got to experience cuz there’s nothing like the Stanley Cup playoffs and clinching twice in a row at home. It it really is unheard of. But now you know what the goal is, Mike. You got to get three, baby. We got to get three. Got to get to that three. We’ll get to that 10 game mark, 20 game mark. Like he said, thank you so much for your insight. You see so much of the team. Uh we love listening to you, Goldie, and with Script Sports. Uh looking forward to many more Panthers games here this season and hey hopefully the playoffs and that quest for a repeat. That’s Steve Goldstein. Want to thank you so much for joining us here on the Panthers 360 WPTV live on our WPTV news page. Listen, you can chime in. We’ll get questions and comments answered for you. Don’t forget Panthers 360 7:30 every Wednesday night on South Florida’s 9. For Steve Goldstein, the voice of the Florida Panthers. I’m Mike Trim. Thanks for joining us. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat up [Music] here. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
WPTV’s Mike Trim and Panthers play-by-play TV host Steve Goldstein talk about the team’s rough road trip and upcoming game against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday. Post your questions below! Also, watch “Panthers 360” airing on South Florida’s 9 each Wednesday night through the hockey season.
