derek stepan
Stepan (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

The Rangers end the 2014 calendar year tonight in Miami, taking on the surprisingly decent Florida Panthers. The Cats have 41 points in 34 games –one point behind the Rangers– but have done so with nine loser points, tops in the league. Much of this has to do with the brilliance of Roberto Luongo, who seems to have re-discovered his game down south following the circus that was his stint in Vancouver.

Outside the crease, the Panthers have a good number of young, talented kids that form their core. Nick Bjustad, Jimmy Hayes, Alex Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Vincent Trochek represent the forward core for Florida, while Aaron Ekblad, Erik Gudbranson, and Dmitry Kulikov are all under 25 and on the blue line. Sprinkle in a few vets, and the Panthers actually have a decent roster. With some time to develop and mature, they have eight guys under 25 who can carry the team.

Gerard Gallant has the Panthers running a 1-2-2 forecheck, which they will use aggressively or conservatively pending the game situation (e.g., the score, puck location, etc.). In their own end, the Panthers play a straight up zone defense. For special teams, Gallant runs a standard umbrella power play and diamond force/box penalty kill system.

What have they done lately?

The Panthers are 7-3-3 in the month of December, with seven of those games headed to overtime/shootout. They’ve beaten some quality teams in that stretch as well. They are 5-5 in the shootout for the season, so they aren’t getting many cheap points from the skills competition. There’s a lot of value in at least getting to overtime.

Despite years past, this is a Florida team that is on the right side of the possession arrow of late, averaging about 55% in December (rolling five-game average):

fla ff

And yet they haven’t really generated that much puck luck, which is actually somewhat good for them since they’ve been winning this much (PDO rolling five game average below):

fla pdo

Their even strength SH% is 6.76%, and only Carolina is worse. There is some regression to the mean of 100 expected, and considering the even stength SV% (92.5%), that regression will come with some better shooting luck. Florida is actually an interesting team to watch as we get into the dog-days of winter. This is not a team to overlook.

Rangers lineup:

Rick NashDerick BrassardMats Zuccarello
Chris KreiderDerek StepanMartin St. Louis
Carl HagelinKevin HayesLee Stempniak
J.T. Miller-Dominic Moore-Jesper Fast

Ryan McDonaghDan Girardi
Marc StaalDan Boyle
John MooreKevin Klein

Henrik Lundqvist is in net tonight.

Scratches/Injuries: Tanner Glass (healthy), Matt Hunwick (healthy)

Be sure to check out our ticket link if you’re looking for tickets to the game.

Game time is 6pm on MSG2.

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