Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Panthers wary of penalty jinx
CORAL SPRINGS — Two of Tom Rowe’s goals in the offseason following the Florida Panthers’ firstround ouster in the playoffs last season to the New York Islanders was to bolster special teams.
Rowe, who has since added interim coach to his general manager tag, can at least take solace in achieving 50 percent of his wish-list thus far as after 32 games the Panthers’ penalty kill has improved from a ranking of 24th (79.5 percent success) to fifth (86 percent). The power play, ranked 23rd last season (16.9 percent), is still struggling at 24th (14.8 percent), but was 3-for-3 in Thursday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Winnipeg Jets.
Over the past 10 games the Panthers have killed off 34 of 36 of their opponent’s power plays, and Reilly Smith even scored the winning goal when shorthanded in Friday’s 3-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.
Shhh. Penalty killers are very superstitious and don’t like talking about their unit, especially when it’s going good.
“First of all, you jinxed it,” Panthers assistant coach Scott Allen, in charge of the defensemen and penalty kill. “Every time it’s talked about we all know how that goes, but we’ve got guys on the same page who know what their jobs are and know the specifics of what we’re looking to accomplish.
“Credit the players. It’s all about following the plan which depends on who we’re playing on any given night.”
The penalty kill is led by center Derek MacKenzie, who year in and year out leads the team in faceoff percentage, as well as blocks and hits among the forwards.
“Based on the group of guys you have to adjust your structure a little bit,” MacKenzie said. “We’re known to be a faster, quicker team now so the coaches designed the PK to be that way. When you have [top-line forwards like Vincent Trocheck and Aleksander Barkov] on the PK, the last thing you want to see them do is diving in front of pucks all the time. It’s set up to protect those guys in a sense, but our PK is like the rest of our game. We got guys who can play fast and do things quickly and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Mackenzie and newcomer Colton Sceviour make up the front-line of forwards on the penalty kill, with defensemen Mike Matheson and Mark Pysyk on the back end. They’re all interchangeable, as Trocheck, Smith and Barkov log plenty of minutes when shorthanded, as does defensemen Keith Yandle, Jason Demers and Aaron Ekblad.
“We’re playing with confidence,” said Pysyk, who leads the team in penalty kill time at 81:56. “Read off each other and playing with [Matheson] we’ve reached a level of comfort. MacKenzie gets in the shooting lanes and will do anything he can to keep the puck out of the net.”
Sceviour has two of the Panthers’ three shorthanded goals and leads the team with nine shorthanded shots. The Panthers use their speed and sticks, rather than blocking shots as they’re ranked last in the league in blocks.
“It’s one of those things when everything is going well then you’ll go on a streak in the opposite direction,” Sceviour said. “You see that in five-on-five, power play and the PK. Everyone is reading off each other and we’re having success. If we can get a jump on the puck you don’t necessarily have to block shots.
The Panthers have allowed just 14 power-play goals, the fourth fewest in the NHL.