The Florida Panthers

The trouble with winning the first round is you have to play the second round. And so the Leafs once again face the Florida Panthers. Last year's Cup winners and all-around contestant to take over for Boston as the most annoying team east of the Mississippi.

Just like with the Senators, I'm going to order this by ice time per game, but when I talk about offence or defence, that's not goals scored or allowed. It is a plus/minus, but a little bit more meaningful that the old version: Evolving Hockey's RAPM tables.

I decided to use ice time in the first round of Florida's playoffs because it differs from the regular season in a significant way. By using TOI per game, I can avoid the problem of Aaron Ekblad being routinely suspended, but what jumps out is how little Matthew Tkachuk has been playing compared to his usual amount. This also means other players have moved up. Will that continue? It's not like anyone will say out loud how injured he actually still is.

Forwards

Sam Reinhart

No change from the regular season here, Reinhart is the most used forward, and he routinely plays more than 20 minutes per game. He is their Mitch Marner playing in all game states with big minutes on the power play as well as at even-strength. He leads the team in power-play goals.

He has the second best overall impact on Expected Goals by the RAPM model. He is best on the team in impact on Expected Goals Against and second best on the offensive side. As a team, the Panthers are better at defence than offence, and their even strength scoring pace was not significantly better than the Senators' this season. So bear in mind that impact on Expected Goals did not translate to actual goals for the Panthers very well this year.

Aleksander Barkov

Another deserving Selke finalist, Barkov has played the second-most minutes in the playoffs and regular season.

He is just behind Reinhart in his impacts on Expected Goals and is likely the toughest two-way centre to play against in the NHL. If there is an inheritor for the Bergeron crown, it's him. He doesn't score quite so many goals as most top centres, even allowing for Florida's low scoring rate, but he sets up a lot and is a threat on the power play. Play him with Reinhart and you no longer need to care about his personal scoring.

Carter Verhaeghe

Barkov and Reinhart play with Verhaeghe most of the time, and he is not the best player on the line, but he doesn't need to be. He is mostly a null factor defensively, which makes him an excellent choice for his role. He's not hurting that top line defensively where they don't need his help, and he does help offensively.

Anton Lundell

With Tkachuk playing less, Lundell played higher up the lineup in minutes. Florida was clearly doing something with their second and third lines that saw the third play the same minutes as the second at five-on-five. In the regular season they averaged about one minute less per game, so they've routinely been used nearly equally.

It's a giant step down from Barkov to Lundell. But setting aside the comparison, Lundell is an excellent third-line centre. He has good, but not exceptional skills in several areas. He plays second unit power play, and big minutes on the PK.

Brad Marchand

Marchand plays on the third line with Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen most of the time. He's not been very good. I want to be clear, this is not schoolyard taunting or team rivalry, this is just what his results show. Much like at Four Nations, he's not bringing the goods to warrant being played at a high level against tough competition. Part of this is likely that he has now played a total of 15 games for the Panthers coming off an injury.

Eetu Luostarinen

The third member of the third line is also not very good, but he plays physically and has some defensive skill.

Sam Bennett

Bennett, the second line centre, plays second unit power-play and does not PK. He has mediocre offensive impacts and extremely poor defensive impacts. His weaknesses and the overall strength of the middle-six wingers explains the usage of these two lines.

Evan Rodrigues

Usually Bennett's winger, Rodrigues is very slightly better than Bennett. He plays second unit power play.

Matthew Tkachuk

The only legitimate top-six forward on the Panthers' second line, Tkachuk is not playing at his regular season pace. His normal pace has him as one of the twin pillars of Florida's success.

He is either first or second in RAPM impacts offensively as well as overall, and he was the third most-used forward. He's played 10 minutes a game at even strength so far in the playoffs, but he is the most used forward on the power play.

Fourth liners

The Panthers have used four players, with Mackie Samoskevich the only one to play more than 10 minutes a game. Nico Sturm has some offensive ability, Jesper Boqvist, who lost his job to Brad Marchand, is actually much worse than Marchand. A.J. Greer is an AHLer.

Defence

Seth Jones

Jones has played only a handful of games when Aaron Ekblad was not suspended. He has, therefore, played a little more than he might with Ekblad in every game. But he has been on the top pair with Gustav Forsling for most of his tenure on the team.

In the regular season, Jones has nearly as poor a level of impact in both zones as the third pairing defenders. This is hardly new. Jones is big, tall, shoots right and plays a lot of minutes, but he has never been, in reality, what he looks like he should be. Big and tall gets you some level of success, but he shouldn't be the most used defender.

Gustav Forsling

Forsling should be played the most. He is good at everything, with only defence-specialist Niko Mikkola besting him in impacts on Expected Goals Against. Before Jones arrived, he played with Ekblad as the top pair and seems to have been doing so in the playoffs when Ekblad has been available. Forsling is one of the best all-around defenders in the NHL.

Aaron Ekblad

Ekblad has poor defensive results, but his offence is good. He is better than Jones, but not by a huge amount. However, Ekblad seems to have lost his power-play job to Jones, who has more skill there than at even strength.

Niko Mikkola

Mikkola is nearly all defence in impact, but he's not a drag on offence. He is exactly who you want to pair with either right-shooter who isn't playing with Forsling.

Third Pair

The usual bottom pair is Dmitry Kulikov and Nate Schmidt. Schmidt, who was intensely bad sometimes when it was assumed he was a top pairing guy, is doing fine in his role. Kulikov is very much number six.

Goalies

Sergei Bobrovsky

Bobrovsky has had a good year, but has not been exceptional. He's benefited a lot from the defence in front of him. He played very well vs Tampa in the first round.

Vitek Vanecek

Vanecek is a good backup and is unlikely to play without an emergency making it necessary.

Conclusion

The Panthers play a team defence that gave them the second-lowest Expected Goals Against in the regular season at even strength. The Kings were first. The Wild third. So clearly that alone does not get you playoff success.

Their power play was very good, but they scored under expected, as they did at even strength. They were 15th in the NHL in goals scored and third in expected in all-situations.

You can see both of these things in the lineup: the commitment to defence and balanced lines, but also the lack of elite scoring skill. Tkachuk being limited in his ability is a serious problem, yet he led the team in points in round one playing almost thirty minutes less than the top line. That's both a testament to his ability to play hurt, but also an illustration of the team's problem.

The top-line/middle-six configuration the Panthers use is going to make matchups very unusual. Paul Maurice certainly tried to keep the Lundell line away from too tough a matchup, but they are the weak spot to press on and they will have to face a scoring line some of the time.

In many ways, this year's Panthers is the team Ottawa wishes they were. They aren't quite like the Cup winner of last year, and while they scored well against Tampa, their history says they aren't likely to keep that level up. But they are systems first, disciplined defence and puck control before anything else, and that works for them.

All teams have weaknesses and have made compromises for cap reasons. You can see that all over this lineup. I don't think their deadline acquisitions were great choices, but they did fill the holes that needed filling.

This is a series between serious and mature teams that will be decided in part by who mitigates their weaknesses best.

Moneypuck has this series 51% to 49% for the Panthers.