FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida coach Paul Maurice didn’t care about which team the Panthers drew for Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Didn’t care about whether that series would start on home ice or not. Didn’t care about finishing first, second or third in the Atlantic Division, either.
The Panthers have much bigger priorities.
That’s why, for the better part of the last two months, the defending Stanley Cup champions have been patient and prudent. Injured players weren’t rushed back into the lineup. Banged-up players were offered time to heal. A premium was put on rest. It wasn’t about tanking — they still had a realistic chance at the division entering the final few days of the regular season.
It was about being as sharp as possible for Game 1, when things just matter more.
“Who you play does not matter and I don’t say that out of an arrogant, ‘We don’t care who we play, that’s how good we are,’” Maurice said toward the end of the regular season, laying out the strategy. “If you aren’t healthy, you can win a game but you’re not winning. And this is true of every team in the NHL. When you get down to the top eight in the conference, you need a certain threshold of health. So, that has to be priority one.”
They’ll find out soon if the approach paid off.
Florida opens the playoffs at Tampa Bay on Tuesday night — the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Sunshine State’s two teams have faced off in the playoffs. The Panthers are bidding for their third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final; the Lightning were there in each of the three seasons before that run started.
“You want to take advantage of the rest days you get and do some rehab and stuff to recover your body,” Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling said. “And I think everyone’s really good at it on this team. We really take care of our bodies and we’re really focused on that when we can. So, for playoffs, that’s all you want. You want to be fresh for the games.”
Since the start of the 2022-23 season, including playoffs, Forsling has logged 6,615 minutes on the ice — about 400 more than anyone else in the NHL over that span. He’s appeared in 286 games over those three years; the only player who has been in more is Panthers teammate Sam Reinhart, who has played in 288.
Reinhart missed three of Florida’s final six games. Those were the first games he missed in three years.
“There’s trust in the staff that they know how we’re going to play when it comes to it,” Reinhart said. “So, we’ve been trying to use that to our advantage and get some added rest and be the best we possibly can for next week.”
The Panthers didn’t rush Brad Marchand onto the ice when he was acquired in a trade from Boston, giving him time to recover from an upper-body injury. And now they’re waiting to see if Matthew Tkachuk — who hasn’t played since the 4 Nations event in February — will be ready for Game 1. Tkachuk has been sidelined by a lower-body injury.
Game 1 could have been Saturday, in theory. It isn’t until Tuesday, so even that brings a few more rest days that the Panthers weren’t necessarily expecting. It also gives a couple more days for Tkachuk to determine if he can play in the playoff opener.
“We’ll get an extra day’s skate. It lets us accomplish both things: getting a right amount of rest and also be on the ice enough so we can stay sharp,” Maurice said. “We have to balance both of those two things.”
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
