It was a tale of two games for the Florida Panthers on Saturday night when they hosted the Carolina Hurricanes at Amerant Bank Arena.
Florida came out a bit flat and it took some time for them to find their collective footing, but that just led to an exciting comeback for the 14,702 fans in attendance to enjoy.
There weren’t many NHLers in the lineup for the Panthers, which has been the norm thus far during the preseason.
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The young Cats have held their own though, and Saturday’s comeback victory over Carolina offered a well-deserved boost to the hard-working Panthers.
Let’s get to the takeaways from Florida’s 5-4 overtime win:
GILES KEEPS IMPRESSING
The injury suffered to Tomas Nosek during Florida’s preseason win over Nashville created an opening for someone to step up and earn some NHL playing time.
Undrafted forward Patrick Giles has taken the opportunity and run with it.
The 24-year-old has been playing some solid two-way hockey, producing on the offensive end while showing the coaching staff that he’s far from a liability when skating back on defense.
There is still a ways to go before Giles earns a spot on the Opening Night roster, but if he continues on his current path, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him wearing a Panthers sweater in a couple weeks.
“He’s had a good camp, and his statistics aren’t as important as the improvement year over year, because we wouldn’t see him play a whole lot,” said Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice. “So the guy comes out and he’s considerably faster than he was last year. He’s got good hands around the net for a big man. He’s making a case. He’s done what he needs to do to this point in the camp, he’s moved himself up the depth chart.”
PAIR OF PROSPECTS TURNING HEADS
While Florida’s prospect pool isn’t considered as deep as most clubs around the NHL, two of the team’s recent draft selections have looked quite good during training camp.
Last season’s second round pick, Gracyn Sawchyn, and this year’s sixth round choice, Hunter St. Martin, have each stood out for the right reasons.
Both still have some distance to travel on their ultimate paths to the NHL, but its incredibly encouraging to see each of them making as much progress as they have in such a short amount of time.
“They’re both very, very competitive guys,” Maurice said. “There is great skill set between the two of them, they’ve got some nice speed. I think for Sawchyn, he’s had the advantage of a year of training camp, and he did put time and effort into working hard, so he was able to kind of survive the grind of camp better this year. I’m very impressed with Hunter St. Martin. At a young age, he handled it and still had speed after practicing with some of the big lads, and we had some pretty good skates in there, and he found some speed at the end of the game. So lots to get excited about, and then you’re also mindful that there’s a long, long path ahead of them before they’ll have that opportunity.”
YOUNGSTERS SHOWING MATURITY
This game could’ve ended much different for Florida, falling behind 4-1 in the second period with a roster full of mostly prospects and AHL players.
To the Panthers credit, they dug in and fought back, not getting overly frustrated with a poor showing early.
It’s the kind of thing that the coaching staff really likes to see from younger players.
“You liked the bench because you have a certain way that you would expect to handle that during the regular season,” Maurice said. “You’d like to see the young players show you how they’ll handle that. We didn’t have a whole lot going the first period, and then we started skating a little better.”
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