The Florida Panthers completed the back end of a two-game Florida sweep of the San Jose Sharks on Saturday. While the score was much closer than the one on Thursday in Tampa Bay, the end result still showed that the Sharks have a long, long way to go before the team is ready to compete among the best teams in the league.
Looking at the Corsi at even strength for last night’s game, you can see that the Panthers put their foot on the gas and then kept pressing on.
While the Sharks had small blips, where there might have been a half minute or so of pressure in the Florida end, it was a fairly steady, championship caliber game from the Panthers. The Sharks were never really allowed to get into the game.
Blackwood stands on his head
The reason the Sharks were in the game at all was the play of Mackenzie Blackwood. The goaltender stopped 50 of the 53 shots he faced. He allowed just three goals, even though the expected goals against for this game was 5.21, according to Natural Stat Trick.
And some of his saves were very impressive.
Spot the difference between these two saves by Mackenzie Blackwood. 🦈
— NHL (@NHL) December 8, 2024
The difficulty level on this is definitely expert. pic.twitter.com/fp8vWs96rN
One of the goals Blackwood let in, the one in the first period of the game that was scored by Matthew Tkachuk, could also be chalked up to amazing hands by a skilled forward.
The hand-eye coordination from Matthew Tkachuk 🔥 pic.twitter.com/fdIRz7IlyB
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 7, 2024
All in all, Blackwood did what you want for a goaltender: he gave his team an opportunity to win.
Barkov bests Celebrini
Macklin Celebrini may develop into one of the best two-way forwards in the game in the coming years, but yesterday, he was bested by the best two-way forward in the game now. Celebrini’s line, which included Fabian Zetterlund and William Eklund, was shut down handily by Florida’s top line of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe.
The Celebrini line had, by far, the worst Corsi for of any of the Sharks lines at 5v5 play, according to Natural Stat Trick, finishing at 7:07 of ice time and a 6.67 Corsi for percentage. The trio managed zero shots on net at 5v5 and allowed eight.
Normally, the line would be creating offense and scoring chances, but last night, Natural Stat Trick reported that the line’s expected goals for (xGF) were zero, and there was one scoring chance.
Scoring summary Sharks at Panthers Dec. 7, 2024
First Period
0:23 FLA Matthew Tkachuk from Sam Bennett
Second Period
10:05 FLA Matthew Tkachuk from Tomas Nosek
13:17 Aleksander Barkov from Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe on the power play
Third Period
18:35 SJS Tyler Toffoli from Mikael Granlund and Jake Walman on the power play
