RALEIGH, N.C.— Nate Schmidt had a prophecy ahead of Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
“I think the whole series is going to be based on what D corps can get it to their forwards faster,” the Florida Panthers defenceman said. “There’s a lot of other parts this series — your special teams and all that stuff — but the underlying factor will be if we can get it to our guys faster than they can.”
If you’re looking for a reason — outside of Sergei Bobrovsky’s performance — for why the Panthers now hold a 1-0 lead, their ability to consistently get the puck onto the sticks of their forwards is it.
It’s the hardest thing to do against the Hurricanes, who regularly press with a three-man forecheck and pinching defencemen down the walls. If you’re a team that loves to exit under control, you can easily fall into their trap by passing into it, and you may not have more success flipping pucks up or chipping them out — especially if your defencemen and forwards aren’t perfectly in sync.
Schmidt said you can’t be overly committed to either strategy if you’re going to beat their first wave of pressure.
“It requires anything necessary because you can’t be married to something in this series, because it’s going to be taken away,” he said. “I mean, it just is what it is. … It’s not going to always be perfect. You’re not going to get the quick puck that you want to all the time. It’s going to be a greasy area along the walls. You have to be very okay in situations like that where it calls for something that you may not want to do. Eat it, dump it, chip it, you know?”
By the time the score was 3-1 Panthers on Tuesday, less than 24 minutes into the game, they didn’t have to do anything but pass it straight up the middle.
According to SportLogiq, they had successfully executed 90 per cent of their controlled zone-exit attempts by night’s end, making them nine per cent more efficient than they were in that category through the first two rounds of the playoffs—and about 50 per cent better than the Hurricanes hoped they’d be.
Strong execution on two power plays helped, and Eetu Luostarinen’s precise shot off a faceoff scheme made it 5-1 and pushed the dagger through.
But exiting clean and fast was where Game 1 was won for the Panthers. And we think Schmidt is right: if they continue to do that, they’ll be headed to the Stanley Cup Final for a third consecutive season.
Unlucky No. 13
That’s the number of consecutive games the Hurricanes have lost in the conference finals.
It’s five straight now against the Panthers, dating back to the sweep in 2023, when Rod Brind’Amour said a lot of stuff that sounded just like what we heard from him after Tuesday’s loss.
“I didn’t hate our game tonight,” Brind’Amour started. “It’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna go back and forth. I think we had our opportunities. Early in the game, too, we had a couple good opportunities, didn’t capitalize and then, you know, it went a different direction.”
After four games just like it two years ago, he came out with a statement that still seems unbelievable to this day.
“That’s the unfortunate part of this, is that we’re going to look back and everyone’s going to say you got swept, and that’s not what happened,” Brind’Amour said. “I watched the game. I’m there. We’re in the game. We didn’t lose four games.”
But the Hurricanes did. And they lost Game 1 of this series convincingly.
Hey, they had 78 shot attempts to Florida’s 46. They had more than double the high-danger attempts. And the fancy stats said they were expected to score close to twice as much.
But on the ice, it never appeared all that close.
Bobrovsky came up with big saves early on Aho and Seth Jarvis and the Panthers immediately capitalized on their best chances and never looked back.
“(Florida) played a great game,” said Brind’Amour. “You gotta tip the cap. But we created a bunch of turnovers and had a couple almost, and that’s the game. They’re trying to forecheck us. They probably put more pucks in (on the forecheck) than we did tonight. And they put more stress than we did on them. That’s how they play. That’s why they’re the best, and we’re trying to beat ’em.”
The Hurricanes will need much better execution to do it and avoid their 14th consecutive loss in a conference final.
No supplemental discipline coming, but plenty of spillover from Game 1
An Andrei Svechnikov hip/elbow to Sergei Bobrovsky’s head went uncalled in the second period and won’t be getting any attention from the league prior to Game 2.
Meanwhile, Brad Marchand was penalized for roughing up Shayne Gostisbehere, who blasted a puck straight into him and sent him into a rage—and then into the Panthers’ room for the rest of the night.
When Panthers coach Paul Maurice was asked for his opinion on Marchand being handed the misconduct that ended his game early, he said, “Yeah, I’ve got one that I’m gonna keep to myself. Not biting on it.”
When asked on Wednesday how he’d categorize a shot at a player, rather than one at the net, he called it “somebody else’s problem.”
The NHL fined Niko Mikkola $5,000 on Mar. 31 for shooting the puck down the ice and narrowly missing Montreal’s David Savard, but Gostisbehere will be no lighter in the wallet for hitting Marchand’s arm from point-blank range.
Aaron Ekblad’s view of it: “I mean, it happens,” he said. “It is what it is. We block shots all the time, so what’s the difference?”
Intent. Intent is the difference.
“Intent or not, it hurts the same,” said Ekblad.
We’d imagine the same goes for a goaltender taking a shot to the head.
If Bobrovsky and Matthew Tkachuk didn’t feel it was intentional, they probably wouldn’t have been complaining to the officials after it happened.
In between, the Panthers iced the puck, and as the linesman was going to get it to bring it back to their zone, Tkachuk approached Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen and had some words for him.
We don’t know what he said, but it was enough that a warning was issued.
With nothing coming from the league for Svechnikov and the Hurricanes, we’d imagine some of this stuff will spill over into Game 2.
Flight of the Condor
On Mikkola, the six-foot-five defenceman who skates like he’s five-foot-eight and has the nickname “the Condor,” Maurice said:
“I don’t know where that (nickname) comes from. Everybody’s got about five nicknames. I’m sure they’ve got a bunch for me. That one — he’s a big man who gets up the ice, he’s just fun. He’s just a fun guy. Hyper-intense during the game, and God, he gets back to the bench and nobody knows what he’s saying. The Finnish guys have no idea what he’s saying … (he’s) just one of the great personalities in our room, and he’s found his place.
“That’s a guy, credit to how this team, (Panthers general manager) Bill Zito and his staff … He asked us to watch video on him when he was in St. Louis. So even before he even went to New York, they were on to him. They do a really good job up here, really exceptional, of just finding players who fit the way we play, and our game is built for him.”
Expect Jalen Chatfield’s return in Game 2
He was one of a handful of players skating at Lenovo Arena Wednesday, and his entry to the series — he hasn’t played since Game 4 of the second round — appears imminent.
In Chatfield’s place, Scott Morrow was victimized on the A.J. Greer goal Mikkola created Tuesday, and he took a puck-over-glass, delay-of-game penalty that led to Sam Bennett’s power-play marker that made it 4-1 Panthers.
It was a tough playoff debut for the 22-year-old.
Chatfield, 29, has averaged over 20 minutes per game through his nine this post-season. He has one goal and is plus-6, and he’s hoping to add to those totals and help the Hurricanes Thursday.
If he can’t, Brind’Amour will have to choose between Morrow, Alexander Nikishin, Riley Stillman and Ty Smith.
