Nervous now?
Possibly somewhat?
That is one thing else lacking all these empty years, this nervous twitch of playoff hockey, this clammy-palmed nervousness that ups the Florida Panthers’ stakes and your invested signs even after one recreation.
“I prefer to assume we’re going to study a helpful lesson from this,” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad stated after their disappointing 4-2 loss in Sport 1 in opposition to Washington on Monday night time.
Right here’s the lesson: It’s totally different in playoff hockey. Extra bodily. Much less scoring. Minimize the lovable out of your play and hold all the pieces direct and easy in your recreation within the method interim coach Andrew Burnette talks.
“We type of self-destructed,” Burnette stated of the Panthers’ tough third interval.
No franchise has extra at stake these playoffs than the Panthers. It’s not simply how they regarded within the common season, scoring at will, entertaining just like the Harlem Globetrotters some nights and delivering the perfect season not simply within the league however of their sad-sack historical past.
It’s additionally what these playoffs can do for this sagging franchise. It will possibly make them related in South Florida. It can provide them the type of bandwagon increase they desperately want.
That’s what is admittedly at stake right here greater than a collection win. So is that this: If they'll’t construct off that nice common season, in the event that they don’t even win a collection for a twenty sixth straight 12 months, you would possibly as nicely lock up the world as a result of it’s sitting on some cursed Everglades land.
This collection, you see, isn’t nearly a successful crew and a shedding crew. It’s a couple of franchise getting full life breathed again into it. Washington’s gamers bemoaned earlier than the playoffs how they hadn’t received a post-season collection since 2018 once they received the Stanley Cup.
Three barren years? That’s nothing. The Panthers haven’t received a playoff collection in 26 years. They’ve allowed everybody to disregard them. Former coach Doug MacLean tells of asking a restaurant to show the Panthers recreation on the tv in Delray Seashore and being instructed the NFL’s Carolina Panthers weren’t enjoying that night time.
So that is their likelihood. The Panthers have an amazing crew now — an amazing regular-season crew, anyway. They scored extra objectives than any crew because the highly effective Pittsburgh Penguins in 1995-96.
You understand that 12 months? That’s when the Panthers final received a playoff collection. MacLean was the coach. They made the type of magic in advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals that Panthers followers nonetheless speak about. Then once more, what else can they speak about?
This crew can change all that. It received a crowd not like any in years Monday night time. It had a 2-1 lead getting into the third interval — they usually not solely tied for the perfect residence file this 12 months however have been 39-0-1 when getting into the third interval with a lead.
These numbers melted away in a single Mackenzie Weegar turnover.
Washington’s Alex Ovechkin poked the puck from the Panthers defenseman at his blue line. Teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov took it in for a breakaway and beat Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
Lower than three minutes later, Washington’s T.J. Oshie tipped in a cross for the lead. An empty internet aim clinched it.
“I believe we had to determine that is going to be arduous,” Burnette stated. “We haven’t had numerous arduous video games. We didn’t deal with it in addition to we’d prefer to. We weren’t as sharp we wished to. We misplaced somewhat vitality.
“This can be a good eye-opener. I may discuss till I’m blue within the face, however till they undergo it and remind themselves how arduous it was final 12 months (in a playoff loss to Tampa Bay), how arduous it's important to play and that each puck and each play means one thing — this was a great reminder.”
The reminder got here at a value.
“We’re nonetheless in good spirits,” stated middle Sam Bennett, who scored the Panthers’ first aim. “We nonetheless know the way good of a crew we're. There’s no panic within the locker room in any way. Everybody’s nonetheless optimistic. We’ll study from that recreation and transfer on. It’s an extended collection.”
The primary loss solely provides consequence to Thursday’s Sport 2. Washington has the growing older components of a one-time champion, too. Playoff hockey has arrived.
Nervous but?
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