Tuesday Caterwaul: Florida Panthers GameDay Open Forum

By Donny Rivette@LitterBoxCats Mar 20, 2012, 9:41am EDT

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Career-highs abound in 2011-12 for Florida Panthers center Shawn Matthias, as games-played (70), goals (10), assists (14), points (24), penalty minutes (49), blocked shots (36), SOG (121), and shooting-percentage (.083) are all significantly up over any of his prior three seasons. The current four-game winning streak has brought no offense from him to speak of, but he's getting it done in essentially every other area with 24 pim, 6 hits, and 6 BkS.

The Eastern Front

Rank	Team	GP	W	L	OT	PTS	GF	GA	Home	Away	L10	Streak
1	x-NY Rangers	72	45	20	7	97	199	160	25-9-2	20-11-5	4-5-1	Won 1
2	Boston	72	42	27	3	87	236	178	22-13-2	20-14-1	4-6-0	Won 2
3	Florida	71	35	23	13	83	180	197	20-9-8	15-14-5	6-3-1	Won 4
4	Pittsburgh	71	44	21	6	94	231	180	24-8-2	20-13-4	9-0-1	OT 1
5	Philadelphia	72	42	22	8	92	231	204	19-10-5	23-12-3	8-1-1	Won 1
6	New Jersey	73	41	27	5	87	200	191	20-13-3	21-14-2	6-4-0	Lost 2
7	Ottawa	73	37	26	10	84	221	213	19-14-4	18-12-6	5-3-2	Lost 1
8	Washington	73	37	30	6	80	198	208	23-10-3	14-20-3	5-4-1	Won 1

9	Buffalo	73	34	29	10	78	187	207	18-11-8	16-18-2	6-2-2	Won 1
10	Winnipeg	72	34	30	8	76	192	203	23-11-4	11-19-4	5-4-1	Lost 1
11	Carolina	73	29	29	15	73	194	217	18-13-6	11-16-9	5-3-2	Won 3
12	Toronto	73	32	33	8	72	208	227	16-13-6	16-20-2	3-6-1	Lost 1
13	Tampa Bay	72	32	33	7	71	202	247	21-14-2	11-19-5	4-5-1	Lost 3
14	NY Islanders	72	29	32	11	69	169	216	15-16-6	14-16-5	3-4-3	Won 1
15	Montreal	73	28	32	13	69	191	203	13-15-9	15-17-4	4-3-3	OT 2

Why last night rocked:

NYR over NJ, 4-2: a very mild selection as a game that "rocked", but only somewhat-tepid news of the night for Cats

Why last night jonesed:

WSH over DET, 5-3: first five-goal effort from Caps since January 24 (5-3 victory over BOS), a span of 25 games
BOS over TOR, 8-0: Globe and Mail's Shoalts: "Monday night’s no-show against the Boston Bruins, which capped a season’s worth of futility against them, was every bit the equal of anything that happened in the worst period of the franchise’s history."
BUF over TB, 7-3: Sabres remain relevant as Bolts hit -45 goal differential mark

Panthers Playoff Update:

FLA did not play; playoff odds down 0.8 to 97.2% per Sports Club Stats

Why tonight is a Big Deal in SoFla, beyond the obvious:

Focusing on clubs within 5 points of Panthers (83P); teams FLA needs to lose in bold…

WPG (76P) at PIT, 7 p.m.: including this only because it should be one completely killer hockey game
NJ (87P) at OTT (84P), 7:30 p.m.: another take-your-pick matchup, selected the Devils to lose only due to higher point total between them

Next up for the Cats:

In Philly tonight; the LBC Game Thread goes live at 6:30. Before then check out our pals at Broad Street Hockey for the home perspective.

Did you know:

Florida has been relatively competitive when playing at Wells Fargo Center in recent seasons; witness a 6-6-1 record in 13 games since 2005-06 (36GF-38GA)

Monday’s Organizational News:

F Tomas Fleischmann was named as Florida's Masterton Trophy nominee