Tonight’s meeting with the ‘Broad Street Bullies’ resembled a night at fights almost as much as it did a hockey game. There were four separate instances of fisticuffs between the Flyers and Panthers.Three of which took place in the first period.
When the teams weren’t trading punches, Florida’s first line was excelling at target practice. Michael Frolik, Stephen Weiss got one goal each and Nathan Horton put two pucks in the net on the way to a 4-1 Panther victory.
These players, Horton and Weiss in particular, have been on fire. Here are there point totals through 38 games.
Horton- 13 goals, 24 assists or 37 points
Weiss- 18 goals, 19 assists or 37 points
Frolik- 11 goals, 12 assists or 23 points
This line has scored 13 goals and had 21 assists over the last 6 Florida games.
Weiss had a career high 4 points tonight.
He is also only 2 goals off matching his previous season high(20). At this point Weiss and Horton(both former Florida first round draft picks) on their way to 80 point seasons.
Horton, who most NHL knowledgeable has been a underacheiver, has shown flashes throughout his career that he could reach that point plateau. Weiss is a whole other story. His highest points total for a season is 61 scored in the 2008-09 season. Are these guys just hot or having a breakthrough in their careers?
Florida was 5th in the Eastern Conference in goal scoring going into last weekend. That has occurred while two of the team’s biggest scoring weapons have been out for a month or more. 30-goal scorer David Booth hasn’t played since October and veteran Cory Stillman has been out for a month.
Florida continues to do well on the road. They are 10-9-2 versus 6-6-5 at home. Have the Panthers made a believer of me or do I still think they won’t make the playoffs? I still need more convincing that Florida is really this good.
A couple of closing notes
*- I got to start writing down some of the inane things Panther Billy Lindsay says during a game. Last month he invoked Ross Perot, last Friday he said the Panthers would win if Vokoun shuts out Carolina. Tonight he said the Florida 1st line ‘was hotter than donut grease’. Boy do I miss Denis Potvin.
*- Either Lindsay or Steve Goldstein noted how poorly Flyer Goalie Michael Leighton has played this year. No doubt Leighton has been terrible. He had a .848 save percentage entering tonight and let two of 17 Florida shots get by him tonight. When will Lindsay or Goldstein be just as honest about the performance of Panther Goalie Clemmensen? Clemmensen’s save pct. is .884 and he’s giving up 3.7 goals a game to boot. If Leighton has been terrible for this NHL season, Clemmensen has been very bad.
Mike Brodeur made a name for himself Saturday night in his NHL debut for the Ottawa Senators.
No relation to New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur, the rookie goalie carried a shutout into the third period, and Erik Karlsson scored his first career goal, leading Ottawa to a 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild.
Brodeur stopped 22 shots in his first career start after backing up Brian Elliott for 13 straight games.
Actually this article states Mike and Marty Brodeur are distant relatives.
Just last season Mike Brodeur was toiling for the Rochester Americans, the AHL affiliate of the Florida Panthers. In spite of having a very good season, Ottawa some how came into possession of the Goalie. The Panthers are so cost conscious, I’m at least partially surprised they didn’t bring Brodeur to the NHL this year rather than sign free agent Scott Clemmensen. Brodeur would have been cheaper, and die hard South Florida hockey fans all know how much the Panthers watch their bottom line usually to the detriment of the team’s chances to compete. Just look at how the exchange of Clemmensen for the slightly higher priced Craig Anderson has been working out for Florida this year.
BTW Clemmensen had one of his better games as a Florida Goalie last night. Still the Panthers ended up losing to the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2.
The Lightning made this personnel move just before the NHL’s holiday roster freeze went into effect. From the St. Petersburg Times-
A day after Lukas Krajicek’s defensive-zone turnover led to a goal in Thursday’s 3-0 loss at Detroit, the defenseman was shipped to AHL Norfolk.
Officially, an accumulation of factors cost Krajicek. He had one assist in 23 games and was minus-4 in his past two. And his turnover against the Red Wings led to Todd Bertuzzi’s third-period goal that made the score 2-0.
“The thing is, when you’re not scoring goals, you can’t be at the scene of the crime too many times,” coach Rick Tocchet said Friday. “When you’re not producing, you can’t have your fingerprints at the scene of the crime.”
Acquired in October 2008 from the Canucks for Shane O’Brien, Krajicek, 26, signed a one-year, $1.475 million contract during the summer.
Krajicek’s disappointing play in Tampa is just a continuation of his NHL career that started with the Florida Panthers during the 2001-2002 NHL season. The Panthers made the Czech born defenseman the 24th overall pick of the 2001 NHL entry draft.(Florida dealt him to the Vancouver Canucks on June 23rd 2006 in the infamous Roberto Luongo trade) Prior to 2008-09 where Krajicek scored 19 points, his highest output was 16. A slippage this year shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Tampa Bay management.
Seven points in their last 4 games has brought the Panthers back to .500(14-14-7). From AP-
Michael Frolik scored with 1:21 left to lift the Florida Panthers to a 4-3 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Wednesday night.
Stephen Weiss, Radek Dvorak and Bryan McCabe also scored for Florida, and Tomas Vokoun stopped 19 shots.
Ilya Kovalchuk, Nik Antropov and Vyacheslav Kozlov scored for Atlanta, which overcame a three-goal deficit to tie the game in the third.
Johan Hedberg made 25 saves for Atlanta.
On the winning goal, Frolik poked in a rebound, putting the puck high in the net.
Tonight’s win was a reversal of the game that saw Goalie Tomas Vokoun get hurt. In that game Atlanta scored late to win. Panther announcer Billy Lindsay termed today’s game ‘revenge’.
I’d certainly call the game a Alka Seltzer affair because of Florida blowing a 3-0 lead. At this moment the Panthers are some how tied for the 8th spot in the Eastern Conference. I’m still not a believer the Panthers can make the playoffs in 2010.
Why can’t the Panthers play more often like they did tonight?
Scott Clemmensen made 26 saves to beat his former teammates, Michael Frolik scored twice and the Florida Panthers ended a four-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night.
Jordan Leopold and Shawn Matthias also scored, and Nathan Horton and Stephen Weiss each had two assists to help Florida improve to 2-5-4 in its last 11 games.
Brian Rolston and Dean McAmmond scored for New Jersey. The Devils who had won four in a row and seven of their previous eight.
Florida jumped out to a 3-0 lead but Rolston’s goal cut the lead to 3-1. Then early in the third period, MacAmmond scored. It looked like the same old Panthers at that point. Build a good lead then fail to hold it.
Then Frolik scored his second goal a minute later. For the rest of the game Florida easily dispensed with any and all threats New Jersey made at scoring again. Overall, tonight may have been Florida’s best win of the year other than their pummeling of Buffalo a month ago. Still, I remain unconvinced that the Panthers can end their nine-year playoff drought in 2010.
A few other notes about tonight’s game-
*- Shawn Matthias, given a chance to play on the second line, got his 2nd goal of the year and played a great game. Still when Florida got up 4-2, Peter DeBoer began using Peter Oreskovich rather than Matthias on the 2nd line. Florida Panthers announcer Billy Lindsay this was a move made for defensive purposes. I’m not so sure, DeBoer has shown little confidence in Matthias to this date.
*- With New Jersey down by two goals, Devils coach Jacques Lemaire did not pull Goalie Martin Brodeur till their were about 25 seconds left in the game. In similar circumstances of 2 goals down, other teams yank their Goalies with two minutes left or even more. It seems to me that Lemaire conceded the game to the Panthers well before the final buzzer.
Update- Rumors are flying that Florida is shopping around Goalie Tomas Vokoun. They have an excellent goaltending prospect, Jacob Markstrom, who is playing in the Swedish elite league and eligible to play in the NHL next season.
The move not surprisingly wouldn’t just be based on the prospect of Markstrom joining the club, but due to Vokoun’s contract. It has one more season to run and will hit the Panthers for 6.3 million dollars.
The Panthers are mediocre at best this year, Markstrom is the team’s future but Vokoun or the injured David Booth are the Panther’s best players at this moment. I can see why to make the trade, and why not to. If Florida is thinking long term, sure shop Vokoun around but don’t do another Luongo deal where the Panthers got shit for their goaltender.
Very little comes easy for the Panthers in the 2009-10 NHL season. Last night was the most recent example. Florida blew a 2-goal lead with less than a minute to go in the game but were able to gain redemption in a shootout. Last night’s shootout victory was the Panthers’ 6th such triumph this year, twice their total from the 2008-09 season.
Panther Center Stephen Weiss scored the shootout winner. It was his 4th goal of the evening. Weiss scored the first three goals of the game for Florida to accomplish a natural hat trick. Then for some unknown and bewildering reason(I’ll get to this more later), Weiss was the 5th Panther to attempt a shot in the shootout. Four previous Panthers had shot and failed but Weiss got one past Avalanche Goalie Peter Budaj. When T.J. Galiardi couldn’t do the same, Florida was able to come away with the victory they came so close to squandering.
Why did Florida Coach Peter DeBoer send four players out in the shootout before giving Weiss a chance? At the moment he is Florida’s hottest scorer. The FSN announcers, not just myself, were questioning this decision. So far as I know, DeBoer did not address his strategy in post game comments to the media.
I will point out, that Weiss was 2 for 16 lifetime in shootout goal attempts before last night. Still, why send 4 players up to shoot before him?
Another decision of DeBoer’s has Panther watchers scratching their heads. Forward Shawn Matthias was again shipped down to Rochester, Florida’s AHL affiliate. In 10 games this year, Matthias has scored just one goal.
This can be attributed to Matthias use on Florida’s punchless 4th line. Also Coach DeBoer gives these players almost no ice time in a game. More than 5 minutes is alot.
DeBoer explained this personnel move by saying he was unhappy with the 4th line’s play that set up Atlanta’s 1st goal on Monday night. I’d counter, that Kamil Kreps turnovers have resulted in opposition goals in two consecutive games prior to last night’s affair with Colorado. How many goals has Kreps scored this season?
ZEROin 24 games. In fact Florida’s 3rd line, Kreps, Radek Dvorak, and Gregory Campbell have combined to score just one even strength goal all season.(Dvorak has two shorthanded goals to his credit. Campbell and Kreps haven’t scored a goal of any type.) I don’t see any of these guys having their ice time limited or being shipped off to Rochester.
Matthias is supposed to be Florida’s top scoring prospect, and he has scored 3 goals in limited play over the last 3 seasons. Is Kreps any better?
Kreps scored 4 goals in his last 90 Florida Panther games
Matthias scored 3 goalis in his last 31 games
Kreps is garbage, and if not for his contract, he’d be playing somewhere else in the NHL or not at all. I don’t think DeBoer has much confidence in Matthias and I expect him eventually to be moved on to another NHL team before he’s given a real chance to prove himself. How dumb will Florida look when Matthias does prove himself after being given up on?
Maybe I should myself isn’t this normal procedure for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in 10 years?
A few other notes.
*- What does Keith Ballard have against goaltenders? For the second straight game, the Florida Defenseman knocked a Goalie out of the game. Monday it was Tomas Vokoun with a swing of Ballard’s stick, last night it was ex-Panther Craig Anderson getting knocked senseless by a charging Ballard. Will the NHL require Ballard to carry Collision insurance?
All snark aside, last night’s incident was an accident caused by hustle, not a stupid swing of the player’s hockey stick.
*- Florida Goalie Scott Clemmensen again played like garbage. He has allowed five or more goals in three separate games this year. Next up is Washington, tonight in Washington and DeBoer has already stated Clemmensen will get the start.
Why not give Alexander Salak a shot? Salak was called up Wednesday to replace the injured Vokoun. Let him get his first NHL start. Especially in light of the fact that Clemmensen gave up 7 goals to Washington the last time the two teams met. The Capitals weren’t even playing with scoring sensation Alex Ovechkin when they mauled Clemmensen. They won’t be with him tonight either, Ovechkin is serving a 2-game suspension at this moment.
Clemmensen was great against Detroit, but that’s looking more like an aberration with every game this goalie plays this season. The choice of Clemmensen over Salak is another one of those recent decisions of Peter DeBoer have me questioning if he really is a suitable NHL head coach.
*- I’m going to stick to this prediction. Florida will not make the playoffs this year, and I predict them to have less than 80 points when the season is done, marking the 2009-10 season the worst for the franchise since the NHL lockout. Florida just has too many weaknesses to finish than that.
This is certainly the weirdest twist for the Panthers during the 2009-10 NHL season. Florida is playing the Atlanta Thrashers in Atlanta. The game is early on, and Ilya Kovalchuk just scored a goal to put Atlanta ahead 2-1.
After the play was over, Florida Panther defensemen Keith Ballard swung his stick at the goal net in frustration. In the process he hit Tomas Vokoun in the head. Vokoun has been down on the ice for approximately five minutes now.
Vokoun is being taken off the ice on a stretcher now. Scott Clemmensen is in goal now, and I expect Alexander Salak to be down from Rochester(Florida’s top minor league team) in time for Wednesday’s game. I want Florida to do well, but right now my greater concern is for the health of Vokoun.
The Panthers are 10-11-4 for the year, and the season has seen some wild swings. I just never expected one to be a serious but dumb injury to our #1 Goalie because of the actions of one of his teammates.
Update- AP reports Vokoun has a ear laceration and is alert.
They broadcast 71 of the 82 games the Florida Panthers play in the 2009-10.
Right now the Florida Panthers are playing the Pittsburgh Penguins. Florida, who is coming off a 3 game road winning streak, leads the game 2-0. The puck is on ice now with just a few minutes left in the 2nd period. So what am I watching?
Commercials. A few minutes ago the broadcast broke up and a screen came on saying there were technical difficulties.
Bullshit! FSN has technical difficulties every Panther broadcast they do. Their obtrusive in game promotions for other programming, annoy the hell out of me every time I see them. I don’t give a @#$#$%! about the next broadcast, or some other FSN show. I want to watch the hockey on ice like any other NHL fan. How the hell am I supposed to do that when a good size portion of the screen is covered with garbage?
Obviosuly FSN doesn’t give a damn about its viewers. Rather than entertain us, they can’t stop from promoting itself and haven’t a clue how much they piss off viewers when they do. That’s why I hate FSN Florida.
Update- The broadcast is back on. I think the technical difficulties were really an excuse for FSN to flood viewers with more commercials. Florida still leads 2-0. Go Panthers!
The last time Florida won in Detroit was December 1st 1996. From AP-
Scott Clemmensen kept the Florida Panthers in the game until the rest of his teammates got their act together.
Bryan McCabe’s goal 40 seconds into overtime gave Florida a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night.
Clemmensen made 39 saves for the Panthers, who won for the fourth time in five games to reach .500 (9-9-2). Stephen Weiss scored Florida’s other goal and added an assist. Nathan Horton had two assists.
*****
Pavel Datsyuk scored for Detroit, which lost its second straight at home. Chris Osgood made 18 saves.
*****
McCabe beat Osgood with a one-timed shot from the right circle for his third of the season, converting Weiss’ pass.
Weiss tied it 1-1 at 8:13 of the third period with his seventh goal. Horton threaded the needle on a cross-crease pass, and Weiss put a shot into the open side of the net.
*****
Datsyuk’s power-play goal with 2:02 left in the second period opened the scoring. He jammed in his own rebound for his fifth goal.
I’ll be the first one to say Clemmensen saved Florida last night. His goaltending had been wretched this year, and I was expecting Detroit to have a feast. It didn’t happen and Clemmensen was getting absolutely no offensive help from the Panthers in the 1st period. Florida had just one shot on goal in the first twenty minutes.
Florida is playing eight games in two weeks. I expect Peter DeBoer to go back to Tomas Vokoun for tonight’s game against the New York Rangers. Clemmensen will have to probably wait a week till getting another chance in goal.
Last night marked the fifth time Florida won in overtime. The four previous wins were in shootouts. Overall Florida is 5-2 in overtime this year. Detroit on the other hand, is 1-4.
Florida is now 9-9-2 after a 2-7-1 start. As of yet, I’m not totally convinced the Panthers rally is a legitimate turnaround.
Besides the rare win in Detroit, the big news out of the game was the knee injury Cory Stillman sustained. Stillman had been one of the Panther’s hottest scorers of late. Since David Booth went out of the lineup, Florida has done their scoring by committee. The committee is now shrunk by one member. It’s time to bring Shawn Matthias back from Rochester, but DeBoer seems to have little confidence in the player. I don’t know why. Matthias is the only Rochester callup who knows how to put pucks in the net.
The NHL’s hottest goalie(1.77 GAA) Ryan Miller this season looked very ordinary tonight. From AP-
Michael Frolik scored twice, Dominic Moore and Rostislav Olesz had a goal and an assist each, and Tomas Vokoun made 26 saves in the surging Florida Panthers’ 6-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night.
Stephen Weiss and Cory Stillman also scored for the Panthers (8-9-2), who have turned things around after a 2-7-1 start. Florida, which beat Buffalo for the first time in five games, is 6-2-1 in its last eight games.
Drew Stafford and Clarke MacArthur scored, and Ryan Miller made 18 saves for Buffalo (12-5-1), which was denied in its attempt to string together a four-game winning streak for the third time this season.
Stafford opened the scoring with his sixth goal with 5:37 left in the first period. Stafford skated toward the net from the lower portion of the right circle before lifting the puck over Vokoun, who was on his knees. Frolik tied it 4 minutes later, netting his fifth goal on a one-timer from the high slot.
Weiss gave the Panthers a 2-1 edge 1:21 into the second period. After stopping Frolik’s wrist shot, Miller swatted the puck right into Weiss, who deposited it into an empty net. Stillman upped Florida’s lead with his sixth midway through the third, converting a 2-on-1 with Steven Reinprecht, before MacArthur made it 3-2 with 5:43 to go in regulation with a power play goal.
Frolik, Olesz, and Moore iced the game with late third-period goals.
The Weiss goal was the turning point tonight. Miller made a stop and put down the puck. Weiss who was trailing on the play must have been shocked at such a opportunity handed to him.
Florida has been playing great of late with the exception of the back to back losses to Washington. No matter what I think of their goalkeeping, you can’t deny that the Capitals are among the best teams in the east.
Up next for Florida are road games against Detroit and the New York Rangers. I think the Panthers have never won in Detroit or just once. The team is playing better this year on the road(5-4-1 is their record when traveling) than at home. If they can get at least two points out of those games, I may modify my outlook on the Panthers 2009-10 season.
