5 keys to Panthers Game 2 success against Washington Capitals

After a disappointing 4-2 Game 1 loss to the Washington Capitals, the Florida Panthers look to even the series at one game a piece tonight at FLA Live Arena.

 

Watching Game 1, I picked apart things I noticed from the Panthers game and came up with five things they need to do tonight to bounce back in the series.

 

Here’s tonight’s five keys to the Panthers’ success in Game 2.

 

Don’t give Washington looks on the power play

Game 1 couldn’t have started off any worse for the Panthers. Within the opening minute of the game they were short handed and subsequently handed the Capitals a two man advantage within the opening minutes of the game, which eventually led to the first Washington goal.

 

It’s to no one’s surprise that the Capitals have a scary power play. With one of the greatest goal scorers of all-time in Alex Ovechkin hovering over the left face-off circle, his patented one-timer is nothing but deadly. 

 

Florida managed to keep Ovechkin goalless in Game 1, mostly because Sergei Bobrovsky had to stand on his head to stop the onslaught of chances from the Capitals all night. 

 

The Panthers cannot take lazy, undisciplined penalties tonight, or ever, but being down 0-1 in the series and losing their home ice advantage makes it all the more crucial.

 

Stay out of the box.

 

Bobrovsky needs to repeat his Game 1 performance

 

One of the few bright lights from Tuesday’s lackluster team performance was the play of Sergei Bobrovsky.

 

The 33-year-old goalie had a lot of doubters heading into this year’s playoffs.

 

For the two previous postseasons, the $80 million man didn’t live up to his illustrious contract.

 

After a pretty good regular season in 2021-2022, he came out ready to win in Game 1. He was squaring up to shooters, robbing the Capitals point blank in high scoring areas and single handedly keeping Florida in the game early in the game.

 

All season the team was able to outscore their problems, but in Game 1, Bobrovsky held the team together while we waited for Florida’s offense to flip a switch, which they didn’t.

 

If Bobrovsky can repeat his performance from the opening game of the series and Florida wakes up, they’ll win tonight.  

 

Unnecessary risks kill, don’t make them

 

First of all, yes it should have been an icing. Now that we got that out of the way, it doesn’t excuse the sloppiness from MacKenzie Weegar to try and make a move in the neutral zone instead of taking the safe play.

 

Weegar was the last man back, he turned the puck over and Washington scored. You cannot try and be cute with the puck with no defensive support, especially if you’re the last man back.

 

I won’t single out this one mistake as the end all for the Panthers in Game 1, it was a bad play; it lead to a tying goal and gave Washington momentum, but the whole team seemed to lack energy for a large part of the game. There was multiple turnovers by multiple players and it needs to be fixed.

 

Florida needs to be safe with the puck. Washington showed on Tuesday night they were really good at closing the passing lanes and clogging the zone when Florida got in. Dump the puck into the corner, push the puck towards net, reset, make the smart plays and outwork the Caps.

 

The big boys need to play big tonight

It was great to see Claude Giroux score in his first playoff game as a Panther, that’s why he was brought in. Playoff Sam Bennett has returned, that’s why Zito traded for him last season, these guys had a good track record on their previous teams of turning up in the postseason.

 

Florida’s success relies on the performance of their two star forwards, Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau. The regular season saw career years for both players in terms of offensive production; Panthers’ fans were waiting for them to continue that in Game 1, but that didn’t happen.

 

When the rest of the team isn’t going, the stars need to carry the load.  If these two can’t get it going tonight either and the rest of the team follows suit, Florida is in trouble, for the series. 

 

Barkov and Huberdeau are two of the best players in the world, but the best need to be the best in the playoffs too. Tonight they need to be on the after burners from the jump. 

 

Test Vanecek

Washington had a goalie dilemma heading into this series, not having a clear cut No. 1 guy between Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov. 

 

Vanecek got the nod and got the win Game 1, Florida definitely helped with that.

 

The historic offense from the regular season wasn’t testing him at all. 

 

When the Panthers got some good quality shots on him, his rebound control didn’t look all that impressive. Florida rarely made him over around, there was no traffic in front of goal, he just had to stand tall in the crease because all the shots were getting cleared away after the initial save.

 

The lack of offensive creativity also had to do with how Washington collapsed into the zone and clogged the lanes. They let Florida enter the zone and essentially trapped the Panthers when they got into the zone, not letting them move the puck around. 

 

The counter to that is enter the zone and fire the puck into net. Send forecheckers to crash the goal for rebounds and make Vanecek have to make a second or third save. When Bennett entered the zone and shot the puck off the rush, he sniped it past Vanecek. Carter Verhaeghe also had a great look where he fired the puck off the rush, beating everything except the cross bar. \

 

Florida made Vanecek’s life too easy, they need to pepper him tonight.