Sep/060
Panthers End Preseason on a High Note
The Panthers ended their preseason Thursday night by filling the net better than they did the BankAtlantic Center. Considering the circumstances, only a franchise’s bean-counting suits wouldn’t have been happy with that.
While the Panthers’ North America Tour ‘06 touched states, provinces and territories, they scored more than two goals in only one of their first seven preseason games, a 6-3 loss to Atlanta in which No. 1 goalie Alex Auld got chased. In the post-lockout NHL, two-goals-and-a-period-of-trap gets you consigned to the same basement the Panthers fought from all last season.
None of those games, however, involved even close to the Panthers roster that will open the season next week. Unlike NFL preseason finales, in which the first-stringers dress only in case General Zod escapes the Phantom Zone and vaporizes the third-stringers and soon-to-be-cuts with his heat vision while looking for Superman, NHL teams actually treat their last preseason crowds to an actual regular-season lineup if not regular-season intensity.
So that Thursday’s 18 skaters pumped in six goals should bring a sigh of relief. The Panthers strafed Nikolai Khabibulin, impassable for a Stanley Cup-winning team in Tampa Bay and expensive for a losing team in Chicago. Nobody will confuse the Blackhawks’ lineup with a playoff team’s, but it wasn’t an ersatz collection of scrubs who will be riding an East Coast Hockey League bus next week.
”We’ve got enough guys to score goals,” said Panthers center Stephen Weiss, who should be one of those guys. “We need as much as we can from all four lines. We had a good spread tonight scoring wise. I’d love to jump in on that act.”
It’s heartening that neither Juraj Kolnik and Nathan Horton lost his shot during the summer. Kolnik beat Khabibulin with deft moves around the net in the first and second period. Horton, a fantastic goal scorer when healthy, smoked in a laser wrister that disappeared when it left his stick and reappeared a blink later as a bulge in the back of the net.
Center Joe Nieuwendyk and left wing Gary Roberts, both another year older at 40, at least won’t be coming off a year of inactivity as they were in last year’s post-economic apocalypse season. If Thursday is any indication, Nieuwendyk still has enough get-along to stay with 31-year-old Todd Bertuzzi and 21-year-old Rostislav Olesz on the line that most combines size, speed and skill.
After falling behind 2-0, the Panthers played defense the good old fashioned way for those of us who miss the shoot-’em-up 1980s — by playing offense and keeping Chicago on their heels. Seven power plays in the second period helped. The Panthers had three second-period goals by the time Chicago had its third second-period shot.
That was great protection for Ed Belfour and the kind of support they might have to give Belfour this season.
Jacques Martin says Belfour and Alex Auld will be two No. 1A goalies. Reality says if the Panthers need more than 25 games out of Belfour, they’re in trouble. He’s 41. Not only are he, Nieuwendyk and Roberts all old enough to perform as a trio at the Sinatra Theatre on off nights should the spirit move them, but you don’t put the hopes of a young NHL team on a middle-aged, injured back for too long.
Auld turned in a shutout Wednesday against Atlanta, which was what they needed to see against a division team they will see often. Thursday, what the Panthers needed to see was something encouraging at the other end of the rink. That’s what they got.
(Photos featured in this article are from last years season taken by JD)
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