In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers were feeling a bit of pressure after losing their Game 1 match up with the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, 4-2.
“A couple nights ago, I didn’t think it was the effort,” Panthers coach Andrew Brunette said. “It was just a little bit of the focus, and I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves and kind of got nervous maybe a little bit and we kind of got out of our rhythm of how we want to play. I thought tonight, early on we weren’t sharp as we’d like to be, but I think we grinded it out, and that’s a really good building block for our group.”
Aaron Ekblad and Alexander Barkov scored first period goals to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead enroute to a 5-1 win on Thursday, to tie the series, 1-1.
“It’s nice to win,” Barkov said. “That’s all we want to do. Obviously, we didn’t play the right way in the first game and this game we kept building. We got better once the game went on and ‘Bob’ kept us in the game, gave us a chance to win, and then we kept building and got better as the game went on. So now the series is even and we’re ready to go.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves for the Florida win.
Game 3 is set Saturday in Washington, DC.
Nicklas Backstrom had the lone strike for the Caps, his goal came early in the middle frame to halve the Panthers lead to 2-1.
“I think we all need to realize that everything matters in the [Stanley Cup] Playoffs,” Backstrom said. “The margins are small, but we’ve got to be a little bit sharper and make sure we take care of that puck. Overall, our execution wasn’t there tonight.”
The Panthers replied to that goal with two from Mason Marchment and Anton Lundell for a 4-1 lead.
After Marchment scored, he whistled for a double minor that the Panthers killed off.
Lundell then scored for the 4-1 advantage.
“Coming out of the way we played the first period, I thought we did just about everything right and we’re down 2-0,” Capitals coach Peter Laviolette said. “And then even the start of the second period I thought that we were doing the right things, and they get a third and a fourth, and then I thought our game unraveled from there the last probably seven minutes of the second period, and then the third period we didn’t do anything.
“It was one of those games where the score goes to three and then four and it wasn’t a reflection for me of the game. But after that, I don’t like how we played when it was 4-1. That’s the problem that I have with the game.”
The Panthers extended the lead to 5-1 off a strike from Carter Verhaeghe before the end of the middle frame.
Vitek Vanecek got the start for Washington,he was given the in the second intermission after yielding all five Panthers goals and making 13 saves.
Ilya Samsonov made 17 saves in a mop up role.
You must be logged in to post a comment.