The Detroit Red Wings had their seven-game win streak snapped on Tuesday night as they fell 6-3 on home ice against the Sharks.
The Florida Panthers are coming off of a tough battle against the Devils, which they won in a shootout, but this team has lost three of their last five games. Detroit has been scoring plenty of goals lately, but can Sergei Bobrovsky and the Panthers keep them off the board?
My analysis
The Florida Panthers have been playing some strong defensive hockey over their recent stretch of games.
Over their past 10 games, they've been allowing just 2.90 goals against per game. In those 10 games, Sergei Bobrovsky has gotten seven starts and his numbers have been a bit odd. In those seven starts, he has gone 2-4-1, which doesn't look good, but he's logged a .909 SV% with a 2.74 GAA.
While they've been defending well, the Panthers have gone 4-5-1 during this 10-game span and that's largely due to their offensive struggles. They've scored 2.00 goals per game, and their power play has only converted at a 16.7% rate.
In their last 10 games, Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe have each only scored one goal. The only two players that have been producing consistently have been Sam Reinhart and Jesper Boqvist, who each have tallied five goals.
The Detroit Red Wings have been scoring goals lately, but they haven't necessarily played against the toughest defensive opponents. Their last four games have come against the Sharks, Kraken, Blackhawks, and Senators. These two teams haven't met yet this season, but in the last three contests that they faced one another, the Red Wings have only scored four goals combined in those games.
Detroit's power play is what has really given them a boost during their recent hot streak. In their last 10 games, the man-advantage has clicked at a 45.2% rate, so as long as the Panthers stay out of the box, they should be able to slow guys like Dylan Larkin, Patrick Kane, and Lucas Raymond down.
Detroit is 8-8-2 on the road, so I don't have a ton of faith in them in this spot. They're averaging just 2.78 goals per game as the away team.
The Panthers are a much better team than the Red Wings, and seeing them claw one out in New Jersey on Tuesday night was very encouraging. The Panthers have absolutely owned the Red Wings in recent series history, winning nine out of the last 10 meetings dating back to 2022.
Sam Reinhart has points in three of his last four games but was held pointless in the team's most recent outing. Reinhart hasn't had many stretches this season where he was held pointless in back-to-back games, so he should be able to find the score sheet.