What the Florida Panthers are doing wrong

Cape Breton Eagles coach Jon Goyens joined Daily Faceoff Live to discuss what the Florida Panthers are doing wrong in this series after experiencing a hot spell.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Jon, let’s start with what Vegas does well. Is Vegas too much to handle, or is Florida making mistakes here?

Jon Goyens: You mentioned it at the start of the show with the weird man races and bad pinches. All their forechecking evolved against Carolina and not giving up those odd runs and cutting them in half. Right now, at the rate they’re dropping odd rushes, they’d be ranked 31st in the NHL in the regular season. Where Carolina had them in the top three.

Jon Goyens: What they’re not doing is the reload and retreat they did against Carolina. The other thing is their dumping recovery, they’re a big dump on the team, but they’re recovering the pucks where it would have them in the last five in the regular season. We know Vegas can score in many ways. If you watch the goal to make it 5-1 in Game 2, you’ll notice Carrier come off the bench early, out of sight and out of mind, and then it looks as if he doesn’t go to the net right away , it creates a little too much chaos in terms of D-zone coverage, and it’s the old adage that « when in doubt, protect the house ».

Jon Goyens: Then you move on to the next objective; there’s a pinch, and it’s a long-range game; now it looks like a two against two, but Karlsson has too much speed and Montour loses Amadio. But it goes on, Staal with half a pinch, he protects the wall, but the wall doesn’t need protection; Montour wants to trade with Duclair, but I think Montour needs to buy Duclair some more time. Then comes chaos; you have to stop in the house, but where does the puck go? Through the point and Whitecloud moves inside, and Duclair tries to block a shot.

You can watch the full episode here…