Florida Panthers Are at Full Strength, Look as Dangerous as Ever
The Florida Panthers played their first two games with a fully healthy lineup this past weekend in Tampere, and they looked just like their Stanley Cup-winning selves from last year.
With Aleksander Barkov and Tomas Nosek both making their return to the lineup this past week, the Florida Panthers finally played their first two games at full strength at the NHL’s Global Series in Tampere — and they looked as dangerous as ever.
The Panthers marched into their captain’s hometown to take on a Dallas Stars team that started its season 7-2-0 and looked utterly dominant, outscoring them 10-6 while beating them in regulation twice.
And they got contributions from just about everybody during that two-game sabbatical in Finland.
The Panthers had 14 players record at least one point, six players record at least two, and contributions from players on all four forward lines.
Nosek’s return gave a boost to an already dominant Panthers penalty kill, which killed off six of the seven penalties Florida took. Florida was able to deploy three different forward groups — Nosek and Jesper Boqvist, Barkov and Sam Reinhart, and Eetu Luostarinen and Anton Lundell — with the lineup now fully healthy, and all three are fully capable of carrying a heavy load.
Not to mention, Nosek introduced himself to the Panthers quite nicely with a slick kick-over pass to A.J. Greer off of a face-off to set him up for the game-winning goal in Saturday’s 4-2 win over the Stars.
Barkov’s impact is a no brainer — even with the Panthers going 5-2-1 in his absence — and that was apparent with his two-goal, five-assist explosion in the three games he played since returning in Buffalo last Monday.
The Panthers now have three forward lines that are capable of taking on heavy assignments with a fourth line that can provide physicality, solid defense and even some offensive pizzaz with Mackie Samoskevich making it very clear that he is ready to contribute offensively no matter which line he is on.
Greer and Nosek are both not slouches in the offensive zone, either, as clearly evidenced by that game-winning goal, or Greer’s contributions in the Top 9 while the team was going through injury trouble.
The power play, which was running at a pedestrian 20-percent clip prior to Barkov’s return, has improved, too.
Uvis Balinskis took over the mantle on the power play with Adam Boqvist sliding out of the lineup upon Barkov’s return and the Panthers have been operating at a 40-percent clip since. Balinskis picked up an assist in that three-game sample via a shot that Matthew Tkachuk got a piece of in Game 1 in Tampere.
Getting Barkov back does help, and he has points on two of Florida’s four power play goals in that span, but Balinskis has proven to be a solid piece to that puzzle, with the top unit moving the puck very effectively upon his promotion.
Aside from a few gaffs in the defensive zone, which tend to happen against an elite offensive team like the Stars, the Panthers looked complete on all ends of the ice, and really, just like their Stanley Cup-winning selves from last year.
Yes, it’s a small sample, but if you factor in the 5-1-1 run the team went on without Barkov in the lineup and how the new depth additions fared with the increased roles they had to take on during that stretch, Florida has the league on notice, once again.
