Quarter Pole Report - noles367's Blog

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Quarter Pole Report

Posted on April 20, 2013 at 07:53 PM.

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Covering the Florida Panthers in GM Connected league ALHL2

The Panthers are 22 games into the 2014-15 season, so it's time to see how they've done in the first quarter of the season. Memories of last years playoffs are still fresh in our minds, but it's time to focus 100% on this year. Lets begin:

19-0-3

That is the Panthers record as of today. Big game against St. Louis tonight, but through the first 22 games that is pretty much as good as its gonna get.

The 2013 Chicago Blackhawks set the NHL record for a season-starting points streak at 24 games. That puts the Cats 3 games away from breaking that mark. The 79-80 Flyers have the all-time record going unbeaten in 35 straight contests. Regardless of what happens tonight or in the next few weeks, the Panthers are on an incredible run and have our themselves in great position for the postseason.

Forwards

The Panthers made a big splash in free agency with Henrik Sedin. That move has paid off immediately with Sedin currently leading the league with 26 points. His 10 goals are also close to the top. The guy has been everything anyone could have expected. The big knock on Sedin is the lack of playing for a championship team, but consideribg he's on a team that was 2 games away from doing just that last season, we think he will be ok.

With the addition of Sedin, many wondered what would happen to last years leading point-getter Joe Pavelski. Well, Little Joe has done just fine centering the second line. His 24 points are 2 off Sedins league-leading pace and second on both the Panthees and the NHL. He saw some time with Sedin on the top line for a brief period but it seems Melrose is fine with having the two centers on their own line.

Jonathan Huberdeau is second in the NHL with 13 goals. After scoring 45 last year, he's on pace for another 40-goal campaign. Just can't say enough about Huberdeau. Just a pure goal scorer. He's certainly up there in terms of elite players in the NHL.

RW Peter Mueller suffered another knee injury last week in Tampa. He's on the shelf for 4-5 weeks. With 12 points, he was off to a pretty good start and playing on the top line. Hopefully his knee will heal fine and he will be ready for the stretch run.

With Tomas Fleishmann traded before the season, and his replacement Tyler Ennis traded 3 games into the season, there has been a revolving door at 2nd line left wing. Rookie Dean Saunders got the first crack and he''a played pretty well. He scored in his first game and also against the team that drafted him, Buffalo. James Neal played there for a few games. More recently Nik Antropov has gotten the call. We just hope trading away the two guys who were best suited to play there doesn't come back to haunt the panthers.

Defense

The first person we must talk about is obviously Dimitry Kulikov. After finishing second in the Norris voting last year, he seems determined to take that piece of hardware home this year. His 22 points leads all defenseman. The next closest guy is 5 points back. He leads the Panthers in ice time. He just does it all every single night and is a huge reason as to why the Panthers are unbeated at the moment.

Erik Gudbranson has been paired with Kulikov on the top pairing. He's made a huge lead this year, emerging as a shutdown defenseman.

Ryan Ellis has lived up to his high expectations. He's got 8 goals and is amongst the highest scoring defenseman. His right handed shot has been money on the power play as the Panthers have the top PP at over 40% success.

Keaton Ellerby continues to log heavy minutes every night. Cam Barker and Simon Despres round out the D as a great 2-way pairing.

Goaltending

Jacob Markstrom had a huge season last year winning the Calder and establishing himself as a top NHL goalie. Entering this season, he and everyone else knew that it was Markstrom who would carry the load in net for the Panthers.

That pressure may have gotten to Markstrom a bit, as his numbers are down compared to what he did a season ago. Now lets not forget he still hasn't lost a game in regulation. There hasn't been a complete meltdown in a game or anything like that. He just hasn't quite been as dominant as he was last year. He's allowing 0.5 goals a game more and his save % is down a couple percentage points. He has 2 shutouts so far compared to last years 13.

We're not saying there's reason to panic. Obviously the team is scoring more goals this year so it's easy to see that the defense will suffer some. We still have faith in Markstrom and were sure he will put together another solid season.

Rick DiPietro has only played a few games in his backup role. Nothing to write home about.

Summary

All-in-all the Panthers are off to the best start in franchise history. The top players are playing like top players. Other than Mueller, everyone has been healthy. Times are good in Florida.

But the schedule will get much harder. The Cats have played the Rangers only once. The upstart Carolina Hurricanes are off to an amazing start and are breathing down the Panthers necks in 2nd place in the Southeast. We have 6 games to go against them. 5 more against the Caps. Still gotta play the elite teams out West.

So while its nice to reflect on a nice start, let's not forget there is still a long and hard road left to travel.