NHL Playoffs 2012: Playoff Primer for the Florida Panthers

The 3rd seeded Florida Panthers enter their Game 1 matchup tonight against the 6th seeded New Jersey Devils as the underdog in the eyes of many pundits, writers and fans.

After all, the Devils finished the season with more points—102 to 94—and the Panthers only finished as the 3 seed by virtue of winning the relatively weak Southeast Division.

Here is a playoff primer breaking down offense, defense, goaltending, special teams and intangibles for how the Panthers will look to "upset" the heavily favored Devils.

The Florida Panthers got surprising chemistry and scoring from their top line of Kris Versteeg, Stephen Weiss and Tomas Fleischmann. Barring a few stretches where injury kept that line apart, they skated together for much of the regular season and were often asked to carry the offense for the Panthers.

However, only Fleischmann finished with 60-plus points (61 on 27 goals and 34 assists) and none of the trio came close to averaging a point per game pace you would expect from top-line superstar scorers.

The Panthers don't have any such offensive superstar, and so instead they will rely on all four lines to generate offense for them in this series.

As is common in the playoffs, top lines are usually neutralized by opposing defenses to some degree. The Panthers' top line is likely to be checked effectively by former coach Peter DeBoer and the New Jersey Devils defense.

Secondary scoring will be absolutely necessary if the Panthers are looking to move on to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. If they rely too much on their top line to provide goals, they'll be playing golf a lot sooner than they would have hoped.

Late in the season, the second line of Sean Bergenheim, Marcel Goc and Mikael Samuelsson showed some ability to put pucks in the net. Bergenheim scored nine even strength goals for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 16 playoff games last season, and Mikael Samuelsson scored 15 points in 12 games for the Canucks in the 2010-2011 playoffs.

This line in particular as well as the bottom six forwards for the Panthers will need to score some timely goals in order to take some pressure off of Versteeg, Weiss and Fleischmann.

Brian Campbell and Jason Garrison have formed an effective top pair for Kevin Dineen this season, balancing ability to generate offense (16 goals for Garrison, 49 assists for Campbell, both career highs) as well as responsible defensive zone coverage.

They will need to continue to eat big minutes on the blue line for Florida and do their part to neutralize the many scoring threats the Devils possess.

Mike Weaver and Ed Jovanovski both bring a wealth of experience to the back end, and hopefully they can help stabilize things for the newcomers to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Defensemen Dmitry Kulikov and Erik Gudbrandson will both get their first taste of NHL playoff action in this series.

Garrison finished the regular season as the only Panther defensemen with a plus rating (plus-6). Every man who plays the blue line for the Panthers in this series will have to be better than they were during the regular season if the Panthers want to advance past the Devils.

Kevin Dineen finally named his starting goalie for Game 1 Friday afternoon. Jose Theodore will be in net for the Panthers in their first playoff game in over ten years.

The fact that a decision took so long to make seems to indicate that there was some doubt or internal debate about whether to start Theodore or backup Scott Clemmensen, who posted similar overall numbers to Theodore during the regular season albeit with fewer games played.

Theodore was 22-16-11 this year with a 2.46 GAA and a .917 save percentage.

Clemmensen ended up 14-6-6 with a 2.57 GAA and .913 save percentage.

Both goaltenders fared well against the Devils this season with a combined 2-0-1 record in three games. Theodore took the only loss to New Jersey in a shootout, something the Panthers will be happy they won't have to face in the playoffs after going 6-11 in the skills competition during the regular season.

There may be a goalie controversy in Florida if Jose Theodore does not perform well tonight in Game 1, as his counterpart Clemmensen is 4-0 lifetime against the Devils including a 3-1 victory against them in the teams' last meeting on February 11 where he stopped 27 of 28 shots.

The 7th ranked (18.5 percent) power play from the regular season must find ways to score against the best penalty kill in the regular season.

There is no way around it. At 5-on-5, the Panthers were one of the lowest scoring teams in the league. They finished 28th (3rd worst) in 5-on-5 goals for, and so they must get offense with the man advantage in order to score enough goals to win a seven game series.

The Panthers will also need to be careful and smart with the puck while on the man advantage because the Devils didn't just kill off penalties at the best rate this year, they also scored the most shorthanded goals (15), 13 of which came in 4-on-5 situations. The Devils like to employ offensive studs Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuck, Patrik Elias and Adam Henrique in penalty killing situations and will take advantage of poor play from the Panthers point men.

The Panthers power play will have to walk a fine line between aggressively seeking offense and making sure they don't give up any shorthanded odd-man rushes, which the Devils are likely to convert on.

Florida will also need to stay disciplined and off the penalty kill themselves. They finished the regular season 25th on the kill, killing off less than 80 percent of opposing power plays. If they give the Devils too many chances with the man advantage, New Jersey has the weapons to cash in.

For a franchise that hasn't been in the playoffs since before the NHL lockout, new GM Dale Tallon did an excellent job during the offseason and the course of the regular season acquiring veteran players with playoff experience.

Kris Versteeg, Mikael Samuelsson, Brian Campbell and Tomas Kopecky have all hoisted the cup in the last five years, and Tallon brought in several other key veterans including Ed Jovanovski, Marco Sturm and John Madden.

While the Panthers franchise hasn't been in the playoffs in what seems like ages, the players Tallon and Dineen have assembled on this team actually have a lot of NHL regular season and playoff experience that will benefit them against the Devils.

In addition, by winning their division, the Panthers get home ice advantage in this first round matchup. They will need to make sure it remains an advantage if they want to advance. The Panthers were good at home this year with a 21-9-11 record but just mediocre on the road finishing 17-17-7. They also had a positive goal differential for home games but a dreadfully negative one for games played on the road.

The Panthers need to make sure they defend their home ice because in my opinion their best chance to win this series is to take it to seven games and simply win their four home tilts.

Lastly, the Panthers need to stress a "first goal wins" mentality even if none of the games go to sudden death overtime. While the Panthers only managed a .641 winning percentage when scoring the first goal, they managed an abysmal .302 winning percentage when giving up the first goal. New Jersey had a .727 win percentage when scoring first and was .421 when getting scored on. New Jersey has shown a better ability to build leads and hold them as well as a better record at coming back from deficits.

The Panthers will need to do everything they can to make sure they score the first goal in each game in order to help dictate how the rest of the game plays out.