sinDer
Registered User
Best thing from Panthers for me is there's 'just' enough physical play and truculence, but it's more controlled than last year. Can tell they've learned. People thought ahead of this series it was going to be a bloodbath.
Maybe that's yet to come, but Panthers have been relatively disciplined while not ignoring the fun stuff.
Yeah, they learned two things over the last years:
1- You have to stay out of the penalty box against Tampa.
2- Making it to the finals is exhausting. I think every players in this league know it, but you can't really know it until you actually play a SC finals.
I wasn't expecting this series to be as physical as it's been in the past between these two teams. Panthers is now a mature team and they're better at managing their energy. Last series, Tampa was the better team and Panthers tried to at least win the physical battle. Now, Panthers know they can be the better team at hockey.
With that being said, they took 3-4 dumbs penalties in the offensive zone last night. So it's not perfect and they still have to be player smarter.