Florida Panthers Gut Out Shootout Win Over Kraken to Open Five-Game Road Trip

The Florida Panthers stuck to their game — dominating puck possession and defending well — to open their five-game road trip with a 2-1 win over the Seattle Kraken.

The Florida Panthers continued to play their game, shutting down the speedy, rush-heavy Seattle Kraken in a 2-1 shootout win.

It wasn’t perfect — they allowed the Kraken to generate a couple of chances off the rush, including the one they scored on — but Florida suppressed them well, holding Seattle to just 16 shots and six high-danger chances through 65 minutes of hockey.

After making one of the longest flights a team could make in the NHL (aside form the one the Panthers already took to Finland for the NHL’s Global Series) the Panthers had the legs and the structure to keep up with Seattle — and that bodes pretty well.

“I thought we were very comfortable and I like the fact we didn’t force a lot of things,” coach Paul Maurice said. “Even down one and later on in the second period, they defended hard, they defended well, they blocked a lot of shots, we missed the net.

“They competed hard on that game sometimes you have a tendency to want to change it and open it up and I think we didn’t do that. I think we were pretty solid defensively for the most part. They got some rush chances, but I didn’t mind our positioning or our thought process, we just couldn’t keep up with the puck or we were pressing. It was a solid road game for us.”

Both teams slowed down the pace of the game pretty well.

The Panthers were on top of the puck for most of the game, limiting Seattle’s chances, while the Kraken clogged up the slot and did not allow Florida to get to its heavy forecheck game near the front of the net.

“It was really hard the whole night,” captain Aleksander Barkov said. “They play really tight defense, blocked a lot of shots, and had good box-outs. It was hard to get to the net, but we stuck with our gameplan for 65 minutes and we grinded one out.”

Seattle broke the seal with 4:21 to go in the first period, when Chandler Stephenson slipped a wrist shot off a rush chance that just trickled off Sergei Bobrovsky’s glove and in.

It was the lone blunder for a game where he made 17 saves with a number of them coming off of high-quality chances off the rush.

“It was a tight game,” Bobrovsky said. “I think we played great. We played strong offensively, we kept the puck and we defended well. In those kinds of games, it’s all about focus and concentration because every moment can be the biggest moment of the game.”

Seattle came close to testing Bobrovsky late in the second period when Yanni Gourde raced off onto a breakaway. Only Nate Schmidt tracked him down, snuffed the chance with a stick lift and started sent Florida onto the counter attack.

Barkov blasted a one-timer off of a feed from Sam Reinhart with 1:01 to go in the second period to tie the game up.

“I think Schmidtty made a really good defensive play there — good backcheck, took the puck away — and we had a little odd-man rush there. 4-on-3,” Barkov said. “Reino found me there and I just tried to get the puck to the net as quickly as possible and luckily it went in.”

The third period — and overtime for that matter — proved to be more of the same.

Both teams kept a good lid on each other — with the Panthers holding the Kraken to eight combined scoring chances in the ensuing 25 minutes of hockey while Seattle clogged up the slot enough to snuff out any quality shots from Florida. And that sent the game to a shootout.

Barkov and Reinhart both scored flashy goals for Florida while Bobrovsky stopped both shots he faced to give the Panthers their sixth win in their past seven games. That seven-game point streak has propelled them to the top of the Atlantic Division.

“Obviously, we traveled yesterday, they traveled two days ago from the East Coast, so it was going to be whoever stuck with their gameplan better, and I think we did,” Barkov said. “I think we did. Obviously, we had some breakdowns, but Bobby was there for us and we played the game we wanted to play.”