Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice spent part of his post-game media session Saturday afternoon discussing the presence of Matthew Tkachuk in the lineup.
Tkachuk didn’t score in the 6-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, but his actions on the ice provide a certain level of intensity that Maurice seems to enjoy.
“Our whole game is better on some emotional level, and he’s the driving force behind that,” Maurice said. “They all are, but Matthew brings an intensity to the game every night. He’s just in there. He’s not pretending. That’s just how he is when the puck drops, and it’s contagious.”
If Tkachuk is contagious, the rest of the team will certainly catch what he has. The Panthers scored twelve goals in their back-to-back wins against the Hurricanes, the improved offense coming at a time when Florida needed it most.
The Panthers needed to put more energy into their offense and get back to their winning ways.
“It’s not about almost solving it. It’s OK, the problem has been identified. The challenge is that it’s a very difficult game to play,” Maurice said. “Playing that way every night is very, very difficult. And we’ve been looking for a little bit of that emotional source about where we get the energy to play like that. We haven’t had that. I’m not blind but a part of it is that there’s a block of about ten days to get from Finland. But we weren’t bad.”
SPECIAL TEAMS BECOME SPECIAL AGAIN
Maurice commented on his special teams units on Saturday. The special teams play the type of hockey the Panthers played before the spell against New Jersey. They take advantage of power plays and score short goals again.
Friday night in Carolina, Anton Lundell scored a short-handed goal. Saturday against the Hurricanes, the Cats went 3-for-6 on the power play, with Mackie Samoskevich, Aleksander Barkov and Evan Rodrigues all scoring while having the man advantage. The Panthers and Spencer Knight also shut down the Hurricanes on their two power play attempts.
“We executed the penalty kill extremely well and Spencer was very strong,” Maurice said. “The power play changes the game for you.”
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