Livescore
At the end of the day, the Florida Panthers opened their road trip by playing a solid road back-to-back.
After taking down the Anaheim Ducks on Monday night, Florida skated into downtown Los Angeles looking for a similar result against the Kings.
For two periods, the game was trending in that direction.
Things can change quickly in the NHL, as the Panthers quickly found out during the final fame at Crypto.com arena on Monday.
Let’s get to the takeaways:
NOT A GREAT THIRD PERIOD
The game was right there for the Panthers.
They were playing a strong road game and held a lead heading into the final twenty minutes.
Suddenly, the Kings were controlling more of the puck. They were generating more zone time.
They were out-Panthers-ing the Panthers.
“We came off our forecheck in the third,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “We didn’t sustain much, we didn’t put more pressure on that back end, net front, and that would be the difference.”
PLAYOFF-TYPE GAME
These come along every so often during the regular season, and it’s always interesting to see them play out.
When Florida matches up with another team that has a focus on physically defending and/or aggressively forechecking, it can make for some May-like hockey games.
This one felt very much like one of those.
“Both teams deserve some credit,” Maurice said. “They both defend first, they don’t cheat. There’s no cheat in either team’s game. They both play a good brand of playoff hockey in the regular season. There’s some skill there, there’s some plays to be made, but not a lot, right? It wasn’t lack of effort by either team. Both teams defend hard, and they defend their goal. They got a couple breaks around the net, earned them, and we couldn’t get a handle on a couple. That’s a good road game for us, I’m proud of the way we played tonight.”
STRAP IN FOR MORE
Florida second half schedule isn’t much friendlier than their first.
They are going to have to grind out some wins if they’re going to remain toward the top of the Atlantic Division standings.
At the same time, it’s all helping them prepare for their next postseason run.
Of course, that’s assuming they can stay healthy in the process.
“There’s been a couple of periods that I haven’t liked since Christmas, and that’s about it,” Maurice said. “We play hard, we battle hard. We’re going to have a whole bunch of these for the rest of the year, so we’ve got to get used to it and just scratch and claw for points.”
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