It’s not always easy for a Cinderella team that reaches the Stanley Cup final to maintain its success the following year. For the Panthers, however, it doesn’t seem too complicated.
In 2021 and 2022, respectively, the Dallas Stars and Montreal Canadiens missed the playoffs after defying predictions and making their way to the final.
The Florida Panthers currently occupy 2nd place in their division and 3rd in the Eastern Conference with a record of 13-7-2 in 22 games. It’s a better start than last year; at this point in the season, the team was allowing 3.48 goals per game. This season, it allows 2.55 per game.
“In terms of our system, we are much further along [than last year],” said Paul Maurice after his team’s training at the Bell Center on Thursday morning.
“We changed our game last year, we needed time to find this new identity. We needed four or five months. The coaches always had to talk to the players. Now it’s no longer about learning the system, but about making corrections to it. It takes time. »
Maurice remembers exactly the day this change began to take place. It was January 1st, after a 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers.
“We became a different team after that game,” he says.
“We are a new team this year. At one point we had nine new players on the team. We had to reinvent ourselves, even after a long playoff run. Even when you find your core, you have to reinvent yourself for the next season. »
The Panthers’ success this year is all the more impressive since the team played the first month and a half of its season without its two best defensemen, Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour, both of whom had off-season surgery.
“We were lucky with good acquisitions like [Oliver] Ekman-Larsson, [Dmitry] Kulikov and [Uvis] Balinskis. There is depth among our defenders, probably more than in the past. This is why we survived. »
According to Matthew Tkachuk, the team learned a lot from its playoff run. The benefits are there.
“[The current matches] are very different, but the way we play them is similar,” he maintains. The stakes aren’t as high, but you have to win these games to get back [to the Stanley Cup final]. »
“We have put ourselves in a good position since the first games of the season and things are going well in the last few weeks. We feel really good about our game.”
The question now is whether they can maintain these results and this way of playing throughout the season.
“That’s the big secret,” Tkachuk said. We prepare well and try to execute as well as possible. But I think we know how to win at this point. We are building this game which can make us win in April, May and June. »
