Sergei Bobrovsky is back in form for the Florida Panthers after the All-Star break

The Florida Panthers seemed dead in the water at one point of the season, but they’ve managed to crawl their way back into playoff contention. Not only have they won five of their last seven games, they’ve also beaten some competitive teams, including their division rivals in the Boston Bruins and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

A big part of this stretch has been the play of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who’s had a .943 save percentage in his last five games. Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna talked more about the play of Bobrovsky and the Panthers on Daily Faceoff Live.

Mike McKenna: At the start of the year, Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight were going back and forth, and I thought Knight was going to be the answer. Bob really wasn’t great up until January 1st, he had an .897 on the season and now, even if you go back to January 1st, he’s 8-3-1 with a .918.

It really does come down to what I think is goaltending, and I think Aaron Ekblad’s also found his mojo defensively for that team in Florida. It’s made a difference for them. The scoring has been there, Verhaeghe, Tkachuk, Barkov, Reinhart, they’ve all been pretty consistent throughout the year for me. I really believed that defensively, they’ve been a little bit better, the power play’s been very good, but Bobrovsky, he’s played a ton, he’s found a rhythm, and he also finally put some colour back on his pads. He’s playing with those long white pillows for way too long, I think he got a little juice from that.

Now, are they going to make the playoffs? Here’s the real question. 58 games, that’s the most in the Eastern Conference for Florida. Pittsburgh and Buffalo have five games in hand on them, Detroit has four games in hand, and they’re hot too. So, what this really means is it’s a race in the East, but the vibes coming from Florida are pretty strong. That team can score, and if they can lock down defensively and keep getting good goaltending, I wouldn’t count them out just yet, and I would have back in early November.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think the interesting part too, and maybe this works against the Florida Panthers, is they have no money. The big story a month ago was they couldn’t activate both Hornqvist and Duclair because there was no money for it, so how could Bill Zito give this team some help down the stretch.

It might be impossible for him to do that, and the games in hand are working against them as well. The Red Wings just two points behind them, they’ve won five in a row. That team’s starting to come on, and so are the Buffalo Sabres, who are 6-3-1 in their last 10. We’ve got a playoff race in the Eastern Conference, and it’s going to be fascinating to keep an eye on down the stretch.

You can watch the full episode here…