NHL Saturday: Panthers retake Atlantic lead with 8th straight win

Not the Canadiens part of it, mind you. Their excellence is old hat by now. No, the fascinating side of this particular jig has belonged entirely to the group of kids down in Sunrise.

It took a few years of stumbling around in the dark for the Panthers to get this good. Whether they can sustain this momentum through the second half of the season is up for debate. But you need a good foundation to start that playoff push, and the past two weeks have created one for Florida.

And he fell HARD. And awkwardly.

The talk of Klingberg winning the Norris Trophy has died down as the season’s progressed, but that’s still his 35th point of the season. Not too shabby for a second-year player.

After all, he’s 43-years-old and begged fans in December not to vote him into the new 3-on-3 format because he was afraid it would kill him.

Look what you’ve done, NHL fans. You’ve scared an old man twice now and probably sent him to die. How could you?

As a hockey goalie, leaving your net to play the puck is kind of like staying at a bar past 1 a.m. Nothing good will happen.

When Minnesota dumped the puck in during the first period and gave chase, Vasilevskiy decided to play the puck behind his own net. You can guess what happened.