It was a bit of an odd feeling for fans and players alike as Florida’s season came to a close two months earlier than they’ve been used to. With a lineup comprised mostly of players from the Charlotte Checkers or depth pieces they picked up along the way, the Panthers’ culture showed through as they found a way to dominate the Red Wings in their final game of the season. Daniil Tarasov has gotten the starting nod more often down the stretch, and with a healthy team in front of him, even if it’s less talented than the championship roster, he looked great. There were a lot of firsts to go around as multiple call-ups recorded their first NHL goal or point. Yes, there are fans upset about the team not tanking hard enough to secure the first-round pick, but as HC Paul Maurice reiterated after the game was over, the team culture is more important to impart onto the young players.
All About The Culture:
Tkachuk said it best a couple weeks ago, “If we lose the culture, we’re screwed.” Never has the team culture been more evident on the ice than in the last few games, but especially the last three matches. Sporting a forward group of Reinhardt-Kunin-Tkachuk, Foote-Boqvist-Greer, Skoog-Luostarinen-Hinstroza, Samoskevich-Schwindt-Gregor, and d-pairings of Sebrango-Benning, Bjornfot-Jansson, and Alscher-Hovorka, every forward line produced at least a goal and plenty of assists to go around. HC Paul Maurice said that the message to the young players was to go out and have fun. Seems like they did, as the team won 9 of their final 11 games, longtime friends Kunin & Tkachuk got to combine for Luke’s goal to extend the lead to 2-0 in the second period. There were six different goal scorers; Kunin and Benning both scored two goals. Greer extended his career season, scoring his career-best 17th goal. Greer seems to fit in extremely well with Florida’s system, and he’d be great to keep next season. The flip side is that A.J. is a free agent and could fetch himself a hefty pay raise somewhere else. He increased his career 17 points (6G, 11A) to 32 points (17G, 15A), and in the process, he might’ve priced himself out of the Panthers. But, if last summer is anything to go by, he may choose to take a pay cut to stay with the championship team. Should Florida lose him to the market, the bright side is that the organization has had a good, long look at young players this year, and there are several who have shown that they could be a replacement.
Take A Bow:
Goaltending was unpredictable at best this season for the Panthers. It was hard to get a good evaluation on where the goalies were with so much chaos in front of them. However, down the stretch, with a healthier team in front of him, Daniil Tarasov put together a string of good games for Florida. He got the last three starts of the season, which Florida won 6-2, 3-2, and 8-1 against the Leafs, Rangers, and Red Wings, respectively. Ironically, the fewer NHL guys they played, the better the team played with the healthy AHL players, especially the ones that had played more than a couple of games. Tarasov is an RFA this summer, and I think his future could be determined by what the team does with Sergei Bobrovsky. If these were the last games in a Panthers uniform for Tarry, he went out on a high note, playing incredibly well for the team. Daniil ended the year just below a .900 SV%, which is admirable given the circumstances. In his 33 starts, he went 13-15-3, setting a career high in starts and wins. Ignoring the 4 games he played for Columbus in 2021-2022, Tarasov posted his 2nd highest SV% at .895, and a career best GAA at 3.05 while facing the most shots of his career at 924. Personally, I think he’s worth holding on to for at least another year. The numbers suggest he can be a serviceable backup, and there were nights where he was the best Panther on ice; he just didn’t get the goal support to earn the wins.
A Look At The Future:
Hinostroza opened the scoring in the first period. A feed from Wilmer Skoog allowed Vinnie to take a shot from the top of the faceoff circle to beat Gibson on the glove side; Skoog’s assist was his first NHL point. Kunin scored his third goal of the season with assists from Matthew Tkachuk and Marek Alscher. Marek recorded his first NHL point against the Rangers and added a second point against Detroit. Jansson recorded his first NHL point on a secondary assist to Greer’s wraparound power-play goal; Gregor had the primary assist. Benning scored his first and second NHL goals in the 2nd period with Skoog earning his 2nd NHL point in the same game he got his first. Sebrango and Samoskevich assisted on Benning’s second goal. Cole Schwindt scored his 5th goal of the season with assists from Alscher and Hovorka. That would be Mikulas Hovorka’s first NHL point as well. Cole Reinhardt continued to prove that he was a solid pickup at the trade deadline, scoring his 9th goal of the season, assisted by Kunin and Tkachuk. Kunin closed out the scoring late in the third with Reinhardt on the assist. Did the Red Wings pack it in for the last game of the season? Perhaps. But Florida’s young players showed up and showed out, proving that they can fit into the big club’s system. Hovorka spoke to the media post-game and said, “I think it’s just the culture that we see in here that we’re trying to build in Charlotte, too. So many guys from Charlotte here. We’re just trying to bring what we have and do the things that those guys do when we’re watching them.” Benning spoke about having fun in the final game, and Jansson echoed the sentiment, also noting that it was still a special group in the locker room. 8 players are headed back to Charlotte to play for the Checkers for their playoff run. Needless to say, they should be exciting to watch as so many from the team got a chance to play NHL games this year. Vilmanis scored 4 goals the other night for the Checkers. Whether Florida gets to keep their draft pick this year or not, they still have a promising future in place.
Discover more from Inside The Rink
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.