Florida Panthers Drop Both Sets of Preseason Opener to Predators

After an incredibly long off-season, the Florida Panthers returned to the ice on Monday, playing two games versus the Nashville Predators.

Both the Florida Panthers and Nashville Predators dressed two completely separate teams for their 4:30 and 8:00 P.M. Eastern puck drops, with neither team featuring their true key players.

For Florida’s perspective, none of the top six forwards from last season, Aaron Ekblad, Keith Yandle, Anton Stralman, or Sergei Bobrovsky played in this two-game set. This gave a lot of opportunity for some of the young prospects and PTOs to get their first big chances against opposition that isn’t their teammates.

There were still plenty of new faces that made their first appearances for Florida, with 18 debutants seeing the ice for Joel Quenneville, who debuted his first two games as Cats coach. Some debutants were top prospects, like Aleksi Heponiemi and Serron Noel, while others arrived as new free agents, like Brett Connolly and Noel Acciari.

In the first game, the Panthers started well, with Brett Connolly getting his first goal and assist inside the first period as the Cats led 2-0 after one. Jayce Hawryluk scored quickly after Nick Bonino‘s goal to make the score 3-1 in the second period.

At 3-2, the Panthers and Predators swapped goalies, with Chris Driedger coming out in favor of Phillippe Desrosiers for Florida, while Troy Grosenick made way for Connor Ingram in the Nashville net. This is where the momentum changed, as Ingram stepped up to the plate for the Preds, while Desrosiers self-destructed for the Panthers.

The Predators scored five unanswered to take the first game 6-3 as their first line of Nick Bonino, Austin Watson, and Rem Pitlick combined for four goals. The Panthers had their stints to get back into it but failed to do so as the better team won the first game.

In the second game, the Florida Panthers really improved on defense but failed to convert on their chances, falling 1-0. The lone goal came early in the game, as Miikka Salomaki’s shot was redirected in by Laurent Dauphin (who really impressed me).

The goal initially wasn’t called by the refs, went to review, which wound up canceling out Florida’s best chance, and being overturned to give the Preds’ their goal. Florida failed to really get too much going on offense, with only one or two big chances.

While the results of these two games mean little, the performances of the players are of the utmost importance. Without any further ado, here is how every Florida Panther played in games 1 and 2: