Three Florida Panthers players who have been under-the-radar impressive in the playoffs
As the Florida Panthers prepare for their first chance to clinch their second-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday and advance to the Eastern Conference final, most of the attention will center on the team’s stars — Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, Sergei Bobrovsky and the like.
But they’re not the only players making big contributions for Florida as it attempts to make another deep postseason run.
Here are three of those players.
Forward Evan Rodrigues
Evan Rodrigues picked a perfect time to have what his coach called “his two best games of the year” for the Panthers.
Rodrigues, who signed a four-year deal with the Panthers this offseason, was instrumental in Florida’s Games 3 and 4 wins against the Bruins. The 30-year-old winger scored twice in Florida’s 6-2 win in Game 3 and then dished out a pair of assists in the Panthers’ 3-2 win in Game 4 to help Florida take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series.
Prior to those two games, Rodrigues had just two points (one goal, one assist) in Florida’s first seven games of the playoffs.
His production fittingly ticked up once he returned to a line with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen. This coincided Sam Bennett’s return to the lineup after missing five games due to a hand/wrist injury sustained in Game 2 of Florida’s opening-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
During the regular season, the Panthers outscored opponents 10-2 when the trio of Lundell, Luostarinen and Rodrigues was on the ice together during five-on-five play.
“I thought I’ve played pretty good,” Rodrigues said. “I think our line as a whole has been really good. Luosty and Lundy have been playing great. We’ve been line matched against, or they’ve been looking to line match against us, and I thought we took advantage of that matchup. I think going into the games, we thought we could win it, and we did a really good job of going out there and executing.”
Added Panthers coach Paul Maurice: “Evan is the kind of guy that can elevate his play in the playoffs. He’s a really good skater, and he looks like with that line he’s getting into a lot of holes and getting pretty good offense off.”
Forward Kyle Okposo
When the Panthers acquired Kyle Okposo at the trade deadline, the veteran forward knew playing time might be at a premium. Florida’s forward depth is unreal, with 15 players capable of playing in the 12 forward spots on any given night.
After playing in just six of 19 regular-season games following the trade and being scratched for the first two playoff games, Okposo finally cracked the Panthers’ postseason lineup in Game 3 against Tampa Bay.
He hasn’t come out since.
Okposo, finishing up his 17th NHL season, has logged two assists while playing a little more than nine minutes per game on Florida’s fourth line. His physicality is on full display, with him logging 22 hits in about 57 minutes of time on ice.
“He has a tremendous amount of respect,” Maurice said, “so what we encourage him is, ‘Play your game, prep your game and all that, but don’t sit on the bench as a fourth liner when you were brought in for all these other things as well.’”
Defenseman Niko Mikkola
Niko Mikkola’s physicality was on display all throughout the regular season, with him leading the team with 198 hits and 124 blocked shots.
But when the physicality ticks up overall in the playoffs, his performance has the ability to fade into the background at times.
That still hasn’t stopped him from contributing in the same way he did before the postseason. Entering Tuesday, Mikkola has 30 hits and 11 blocked shots, which respectively rank third and fifth on the team.
“The playoffs are such a different game for almost everybody, and then there’s a handful of guys in your locker room that it’s almost no different,” Maurice said. “If you watch Niko’s game all year, it’s no different. The physicality is always there, which is part of the reason why we love him so much.”
