Size, speed and spacing: Panthers build top line to play to Aleksander Barkov’s strengths

The secret to the Florida Panthers’ second-round upset of the Maple Leafs was hidden in plain sight.

The Carter Verhaeghe-Aleksander Barkov-Anthony Duclair line has been a part of the Panthers since the very first day of their first season together as teammates in 2021, after an offseason of upheaval — Bill Zito’s first in Florida — forced them to try out new combinations up and down the lineup. Joel Quenneville’s first instinct was to put Barkov, a defensive powerhouse and mountain of a center, in between his two fastest wingers.

“Those two guys,” the captain said, “I’ve played the most with.”

In the two-plus years since, those three have played together and apart in almost equal measure and have now found their way back to each other in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs. After only playing 60:48 together in the regular season, they played more than that in the Toronto series alone, and were collectively the Panthers’ go-to option to defend the Maple Leafs’ most potent players and spark a second straight postseason upset.

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Florida won in Round 2 by holding Toronto to just 10 goals in five games and will need a similar defensive effort to beat the Hurricanes, who allowed the second fewest goals in the regular season, in the Eastern Conference finals when they begin later this week. The first line’s growth into an unlikely defensive stalwart has taken the Panthers to another level — and it is unlikely.

At the heart of the line is Barkov, who won the Frank J. Selke Trophy just last year and is unquestionably one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL. He alone gives any line a high defensive floor and was why Florida frequently used this trio against superstar center Auston Matthews in the second round.

It wouldn’t work without Duclair and Verhaeghe, though. First and foremost, both are scorers — Duclair scored 30 goals last season and Verhaeghe had 40 in the regular season — and became NHL players because of it.

“Neither player got into the league defending,” coach Paul Maurice said Friday.

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Both do it now and the Panthers’ current system helps.

In Round 2, Duclair, Barkov and Verhaeghe didn’t allow a goal when they were on the ice together until the final five minutes of regulation in Game 5. Matthews, who scored 100 goals in the last two regular seasons, didn’t score once in the second round and the Panthers shut him down by running Barkov’s line against him for more than 28 minutes — more than a third of the 5-on-5 time he was on the ice.

Even though it got outshot by the Matthews line, the Barkov line won the battle for possession time and generated the majority of the scoring chances by pressing hard on the forecheck, chasing down loose pucks and letting Barkov win the bulk of the battles along the board.

In the second round, Florida outscored Toronto, 3-1, when those three were on the ice together.

“We’re on them,” Verhaeghe said Friday. “We’re fast, quick to close on them.”

Verhaeghe and Barkov, in particular, have been closely tied to each other since Verhaeghe joined the Panthers as an unheralded free agent in 2020. He was a bit player with the Stanley Cup-winning Lightning, but Zito saw potential and signed him, and Quenneville, the coach at the time, saw the same and immediately put him on a line with Barkov.

It was, at first glance, an odd combination, especially once Duclair joined them on the right wing. Barkov is a defense-first center, who often deliberately carries the puck into the offensive zone. Verhaeghe and Duclair fly from end to end, and often get their scoring chances by pushing in transition.

Although the line has had its ups and downs, it mostly works. Barkov covers up his wingers defensive flaws and the wingers can create chances out of nothing when Barkov is pinned back on defense.

“Whether it’s using our speed to push them back and give Barky more space or whether it’s Barky making a really smart play defensively when we’re a little too far out of the zone,” Verhaeghe said, “it just works.”

The line barely played together in the regular season, as Duclair spent more than half the year recovering from a torn Achilles tendon and then had to work his way back into a top-six role, and it meant it took some time for those three to reconnect during these Stanley Cup playoffs. For the last couple weeks, they’ve been as good as ever.

The Panthers’ offense currently uses a lot of “Dump’n’Chase,” where someone sends a puck deep into the offensive zone and the forwards try to get it to set up the offense, and the wingers’ speed to get into the corners makes it work. Their defense is right now all about an aggressive forecheck and the speed again makes the line pesky, forcing turnovers and forcing opponents to expend a ton of energy even when they do get out of their own zone.

“There’s speed on the ice and all of the players can use that speed,” Maurice said. “If you can skate, you can defend. The rest of it is just learning the reads.”

This is where Duclair comes in: His injury meant he spent the second half of the regular season playing catch-up after Florida completely overhauled its style of play in his time away.

It wasn’t the easiest fit for Duclair to slot into a newly defensive-minded team in the middle of the season, but this time line has never been about the obvious.

“Our line’s just kind of getting better,” Verhaeghe said. “We haven’t really played together all year, but we’re starting to kind of get better every game.”