[Cali Panthers Fan]

Panthers are playing pretty well lately, but it's mostly been against bottom of the standings teams. However, the forwards are starting to click on all cylinders and produce some goals.

Adding a healthy Luongo into the lineup fixes one of their biggest problems all year long: Goaltending. Reimer did an admirable job of filling in, but his numbers were starting to dip big time. This has traditionally happened whenever Reimer has been given a starter's work load. Even Harri Sateri got some games in recently and looked better than Reimer. What I've observed all year is that the Panthers are forced to focus on producing shots because they lack offensive talent outside of their top 3 forwards (Huberdeau, Barkov, Trocheck). This leads to them blowing the zone more readily or not focusing enough on having a safe exit/transition into offense. Add in that a lot of their defenders are quite young and still learning, and you have a recipe for one of the worst defensive teams in the league in terms of high quality chances and goals against. Throw in the goaltending providing the 2nd worst High Danger Save Percentage in the league, and you can see why they've struggled this year.

There is some strong talent on this team. A few more tweaks to the roster, and a little stronger game plan from Boughner, and the Panthers could be right back in the playoff hunt next year.