Dressing a roster that will likely closely resemble what we see on Opening Night, the Florida Panthers wrapped up their preseason slate on Saturday night.
Facing the Los Angeles Kings in Quebec City, Florida picked up a pair of power play goals while skating to a 4-2 victory at the Videotron Centre.
Special teams have been a strength for the Panthers throughout their exhibition schedule, but it was nice to see them do it with much of the NHL regulars in uniform.
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Now it’s time to prepare for the games that count.
Here are our final takeaways of the preseason:
CATS ESCAPE HEALTHY
The record doesn’t matter, nor do the stats.
Are the players healthy, and do they feel ready heading into the season?
That’s what matters when training camp comes to an end.
While the Panthers have had a few nicks and bruises here and there, for the most part they avoided anything serious injury-wise.
Florida will surely be hoping that this is a sign of things to come as they prepare to defend their Stanley Cup title.
“We got through fairly healthy, which is a good thing,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “We have to hit to be good. We have to be a very physical team, and when that, every part of our game then has a far better chance of being executed. So we got through it healthy. It was a very good camp.”
SAMOSKEVICH STRONG SHOWING
Rookie Mackie Samoskevich skated in his first preseason game Saturday after battling an upper-body injury throughout training camp.
Florida’s first round selection from 2021 is coming off a strong first pro season with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers and is poised to break into the NHL with the defending Stanley Cup Champs.
He skated on a line with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen against the Kings and ideally, that’s where he’ll start the season.
With Lundell poised for a breakout year, there is a high ceiling for Florida’s potential new third line.
“He looked fast, and he looked fast throughout his shift,” Maurice said of Samoskevich. “So amateur players come in, and they come in and out of shifts, they make their play with the puck, and then they basically stand up and watch a bunch of other guys go hard, and then they kind of come back into it. Based on one game, but even early in camp, before he was injured, he looked very strong, very quick. He’s got elite NHL hands now, but he’s had those the last two or three years, but his pace was good today. I was very happy with his game.”
ON TO OPENING NIGHT
There isn’t much time for the Panthers to take a breath before they’ll be diving into the regular season.
Sunday will be a travel day, Monday they’ll practice during the morning and get their Stanley Cup rings that evening, and Tuesday the Boston Bruins will be in town for Opening Night.
Oh but it doesn’t stop there. Florida will then play four road games in six days after they face the Bruins.
Yeehaw.
“You’re not wading into this one,” Maurice said. “We got Boston twice, and then Buffalo and Ottawa are rivals, There’s usually lots of penalty minutes to be had in those games, so we can’t hate the idea of peaking at the right time. But you have to peak Tuesday and keep peaking every day until the end of the year.”
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