FLORIDA PANTHERS vs. WASHINGTON CAPITALS
GAME 1
MAY 3, 2022
FLA Live Arena – Sunrise, Fla.
| FLORIDA PANTHERS | WASHINGTON CAPITALS |
| 2 | 4 |
PANTHERS POSTGAME QUOTES
Defenseman Aaron Ekblad
On looking ahead to the next game:
“All of us can do a better job at taking care of each other and making sure those things don’t happen. We learned a valuable lesson. It’s first to four (wins), not first to one. It’s important we get back on the horse and take care of business for the rest of the series.”
On Sergei Bobrovsky’s performance:
“I thought we did a good job supporting him. He made some huge saves and that’s the Bob we love to see, no doubt about it. He was fantastic.”
Forward Sam Bennett
On Florida’s mentality in the locker room:
“We’re still in good spirits. We still know how good of a team we are, so there’s no panic in the locker room whatsoever. Everyone’s still positive. We will learn from that game and move on. It’s a long series.”
Interim Head Coach Andrew Brunette
On the game tonight:
“I think we had to figure out this is going to be hard. We haven’t had a lot of hard games and we didn’t handle it as well as we’d like to. We weren’t as sharp as we wanted to [be], we lost a little energy. This is a good eye-opener. This is playoff hockey. I could talk until I’m blue in the face to them until they go through this and remind themselves how hard it was last year and remind themselves how hard you have to play and that every puck and every play means something. That was a good reminder for us tonight. We’re going to have our hands full and we knew that coming in and they let us know tonight.”
CATS STATS
- Claude Giroux scored in his Panthers playoffs debut, his 26th career playoff tally. He has produced 74 points (26-48-74) over 86 NHL playoff games.
- Sam Bennett scored his 13th career playoff goal. He has recorded six points (2-4-6) over six playoff games since joining Florida last season.
- Bennett led Florida with eight hits.
- Carter Verhaeghe notched his fourth career playoff assist. He has logged four points (2-2-4) over seven playoff games with Florida.
- Radko Gudas posted his fifth career playoff assist, skating in his 27th NHL playoff game. He has registered three points (1-2-3) over seven playoff games with the Panthers.
- Brandon Montour logged his ninth career playoff assist, his first playoff point with Florida. He has amassed nine helpers over 28 career playoff games.
- Aaron Ekblad skated in his first game since suffering an injury March 18 at ANA. He led Florida with 24:11 time on ice, registering two shots on goal and two hits.
- Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 34 of 37 WSH shots he faced (.919 save percentage)
- Gustav Forsling led Florida with a plus-two rating and three blocked shots. He posted a +41 rating during the 2021-22, the highest in one season in club history.
- Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, and Eetu Luostarinen skated in their first NHL playoff game.
- Ben Chiarot and Jonathan Huberdeau led Florida with five shots on goal each.
