A Second Look: Panthers 3, Blue Jackets 2

The short of it

Sean Bergenheim, Aaron Ekblad, and Jonathan Huberdeau scored goals, and Roberto Luongo turned aside 30 for his 18th win of the season. Recap here.

The first period would see the Jackets outshooting the Panthers in the early going, getting seven shots on goal to two for the Cats through the first nine minutes of the game. Florida closed the gap later in the frame, which saw each team put 13 shots on goal and direct 20 shots at their respective opposing goaltenders. In second period, each team scored twice. The Panthers did it on 11 shots, and the Jackets did it with seven. The Corsi difference was much more narrow, favoring the Cats 15-14. The third period would see the Panthers slowly pull away from Columbus in shot generation, culminating with Sean Bergenheim’s goal/high-stick trick with seven minutes left in regulation. After that, you can see the Jackets’ productivity spike as they scrambled to solve Bobby Lou.

Florida Panthers

• Every Florida player had a Corsi% above their Zone Start%. The biggest winner in C-ZS difference was Sasha Barkov, who started just three of his 22 shifts in the offensive zone but still managed to be present for 57% positive Corsi events. Jonathan Huberdeau and Brad Boyes had similar success.
• Startlingly, the only Panther to reach even just a modest 50% Zone Start was Sean Bergenheim. Every other Cat had Zone Starts drastically below half. This is indicative of most shifts starting on the defensive side of the ice.
• Jimmy Hayes actually started zero of his 19 shifts on the offensive side, but 22% of shots generated with him in the mix were toward the opposition.
• The overarching factoid to take out of this table is that Florida does a great job of getting the puck out of the defensive zone. /

Columbus Blue Jackets

• Directly converse to the Florida bunch, the Jackets didn’t have anyone even close to breaking even in C-ZS. James Wisniewski came the closest, helping to generate a 68% Corsi while starting 77% of the time on Florida’s side of the ice.
• Most of the Columbus team had Corsi%’s better than 50%. Only Jack Johnson, Mark Savard, and Jared Boll rated out with less than 40%.
• Five Blue Jackets started 100% of their shifts in Florida’s zone. /

It might seem to you on first blush that these numbers must be heavily influenced by power plays, but that simply wasn’t the case last night. Florida was on the power play for six minutes, and Columbus had the advantage for four. That would explain away some of the Panthers slanted bias, but not every single player.

Tomorrow night, the Panthers will visit the New Jersey Devils for a 7:30 faceoff.