Cats Back at Home vs Preds (FLA)

FLA

Cats Back at Home vs Preds

By Matt Ross

Feb 22, 2022 • 6:56 am

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After recently defeating their away game demons with a successful 3-0-0 road trip, the Florida panthers return to home ice tonight when they take on the Nashville Predators. It’s the first time the Cats will be on home ice since January 29th.

Florida enters tonight with a 35-10-5 record and a five-point padding that separates them atop the Atlantic Division from the second place Tampa Bay Lightning (32-11-6). The Cats have also won an impressive 17 of their last 21 games and play with a level of confidence and skill that this fan base has not seen before. I mean, aside from the obvious guys like Huby, Barky, etc., just look at the play of Weegs and Ekblad on the backend…

Tonight’s Tilt

A nice little preview from the Panthers’ site:

“The Panthers will return to their friendly confines when they kick off a five-game homestand with a matchup against the the Predators (28-18-4) at FLA Live Arena on Tuesday. Holding onto a wild card in the Western Conference, Nashville enters this week in a bit of a slump. With a 5-3 loss at Carolina on Friday, they saw their losing streak reach four games. In that span, they've given up at least four goals in each game while being outscored 18-9. A contender for the Norris Trophy, Roman Josi, who won the award in 2019-20, leads the Predators in scoring and sits first among all NHL defensemen with 51 points (13 goals, 38 assists). Under him, Matt Duchene (44) and Filip Forsberg (41) have also crossed the 40-point plateau for Nashville. In the crease, all-star Juuse Saros has gone 24-15-3 with a .923 save percentage. Extra hot at home this season, look for Sam Bennett light the lamp in this game. Sitting second on the team in goals with 21, a team-leading 16 of those scores have come in Sunrise - the fifth-most home goals in the NHL.…

When I think of Nashville I think of a strong defensive game with charges being led on the backend from Roman Josi and a steady presence in net from Juuse Saros. But it seems they’ve hit a bit of a skid lately and so I would love to see the Panthers jump on them early and be relentless. We all know my dislike for the Preds…haha.

Going back to last game…credit to the Hawks for keeping things closer than the final score showed, but one of the things I really noticed about the Panthers in that game was their ability to not only create space, but also work in tight spaces.

Guys like Barky or Huby leading a rush into the offensive zone forces the defense and back checking forwards to collapse on them, which opens up the ice for whoever is streaking or crashing the net with them. This is where the ice really opens up for Florida and they are free to cycle the puck around.

To the other point, those same guys, and others like Lundell, Lomberg, Hornqvist, etc., are so good at working down low along the boards or net while keeping possession and having the vision to spot a guy out in front or back at the point.

I know they have been doing these things all year, but it felt especially on display Sunday in Chicago.

The lines and pairings from morning skate looked like this:

Verhaeghe - Barkov - Mamin Huberdeau - Bennett- Duclair Marchment - Lundell - Reinhart Lomberg - Luostarinen - Hornqvist Vatrano - Thornton - Acciari Tippett

Weegar - Ekblad Forsling - Gudas Carlsson - Montour Juolevi

Bobrovsky/Johansson

Bruno says Bob will get the nod again, so Double J sits out yet again. Hey, keep riding Bob’s hot hand, but I hope to at least see Double J at some point just to see what he’s got.

Bruno also said Mamin could be back in the lineup. Good news for me because I’m a big fan of his game and think his frame and skill bring add a nice dynamic to this already-nasty roster. Glad to hear he might be jumping back into action tonight.

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Hey, let’s keep this thing rolling…Go Panthers!

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