Battling some insomnia last night gave me a chance to jump into the condensed game against Montreal from the other night.
The Cats latest fall to the Canadiens puts them on a dreaded winless streak and has a lot of fans scrambling in fear saying, “It’s the same old Panthers...”
I’m still not there yet. This is the preaseon, there’s a lot of things still being ironed out and there’s a lot of potential talent on the squad. I’m actually looking at the last game as a glass half-full. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to do.
As such, I threw together some quick thoughts after watching the condensed game.
The Good
Monty:
After giving up an extremely soft goal in the opening minutes of the first (see below), I thought Monty bounced back nicely against what would become a barrage of shots by game’s end. He looked very confident at times, despite a generally weak effort defensively - more on that later.
Battling Back:
The Panthers were down multiple times in this game, but managed to always get back into it. After being down 1-0 at the end of the first, the Cats pushed on in the second to make it 3-1 on goals from Owen ‘Every Fans Savior’ Tippett, Anthony Greco and Johnathan ‘Don’t Call Me Johnny’ Ang. Tippett scored on a nice wrister, while Greco capitalized on a MTL turnover and Ang finished a nice setup by sneaking it through Price’s five-hole. Always good when the young guns find the back of the net.
The Bad
Giving Up the Lead:
The Cats were pretty good at this last year and it points to a bigger issue which can be seen in The Ugly...
Shootout:
“The gimmick” is an interesting part of the game that seems to s0it fans and there’s no doubt about it that MTL exposed Monty in it - going 3-for-3 to get the W. While he may have been gassed, this could be an aspect of Monry’s game he may need to work on going forward.
The Ugly
Florida was horribly outshot 46-18. Monty faced 46 shots. 46! What’s even scarier that that the Panthers blocked 18 shots, so that total could have been even more...
I think there’s some layers to a lopsided number like that. The first is defense (which we know), but it’s not only the guys on the blue line. It’s team defense as a whole. Forwards need to get back and help out, too - especially when you know the backend is lacking. On top of that, a lot more offense needs to be generated. The Cats had a tendency to get a little too cute with passing last year instead of taking shots when the opportunity allowed. They can’t afford to do that again this year. Just keep getting pucks to the net.
Plays like the below where they can’t clear the zone and fail to be able to get on/box guys out and clear the goal mouth, really need to tighten up. I don’t care who you have in net, they’re not stopping multiple opportunities like this that we saw in this game.
Here’s another play where the opposition is able to get behind the defense and get a quality opportunity that leads to a goal. What kind of bothers me about this play is that Stralman (a veteran defenseman) and his partner look kind of lost out there - a trait on the backend we’ve come all too familiar with.
I’m still not hitting the panic button!
Q is a legit leader. If he has doubts, he doesn’t show it. I believe what he says when he says there are good things to pull out of these losses. I think he also hits the nail of the head when he says they need to be harder on the puck. Right now, they’re extremely soft in their own zone and they need to straighten that out.
Time will tell if these bigger issues get straightened out, though I think a lot is a work in progress. For now, we have to follow our leaders behind the bench.
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The Cats pick things back up tonight against the Dallas Stars...
Go Panthers!
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