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*Zerg* · 07-03-2023, 08:55 PM

Hello there. I need money, have just made a white ROUS (Russian Of Unusual Size), and the graders are late with my previous word-vomit, so I'm going to give them more work. Also, since this is the Los Angeles Panthers' first trip back to the playoffs in some time, and my first as Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz at the professional level, I thought this would be a grand time to submit a recap and review of our playoff performance this season. Bearing in mind that Grzegorz was called up a season early, and also bearing in mind that goalie TPE is a meme on this site for a reason, let's get into this without any further word padding. Except for this sentence, because I'm the one writing this and because I can.

A very young Panthers team won the first round in its very first return to the playoffs, announcing the end of the org's rebuild. It only makes sense to begin with the forwards who lead the charge and work backwards from there. What are forwards expected to do? That's right, make the opposing goalie miserable, so we'll begin with the Panthers' leader in playoff goals, Yannick Svoboda. Yannick is certainly no prospect, having been a valiant soldier for the Panthers through our doldrums years, but he's still young enough that he can expect to retain a critial role in the team's future playoff pushes. His prime is nowhere near over. Despite the youth and inexperience of the rest of the team, he managed to turn in his best post-season performance since his rookie season, with six goals, four assists, and ten points in the twelve playoff games LA played this season. His offensive impact was hard to overstate. While some pundits have levelled criticism at his defensive performances over the series, especially against Edmonton, this fundamentally misunderstands the Panthers' system. Svoboda was never intended to be the first backchecker on his line.

That honor goes instead to his opposite wing, LA's MVP by the standards of anyone who actually understands the Panthers' game (disregard any pundits claiming Seattle "got goalied", Grzegorz himself is not at that level, nor is that how LA's system works) - Reed Kobo. A hair younger than Yannick, but four inches taller, Reed served the role of playmaker on the Panthers' top line. National media noticed this handily, because they only checked the stats sheet and noticed he lead the team in assists with his four goals, six assists, ten points statline in twelve games. They seem, however, to have checked his penalty kill minutes and stopped analyzing his defensive game there. While his statline won't show you many blocked shots (otherwise known as injury magnets. Stop blocking shots with your body when your stick will do the trick!), actually watching the film will show you what a monster of a shot suppressor Kobo was for the Panthers. Advanced stats suggest he actually had the strongest defensive impact of any LA skater, let alone the forwards. For any young forwards looking to make a good defensive impact without sacrificing their bodies to block easily saved shots in meaningless games in March, Reed Kobo's game is worth studying and emulating. Everyone in the Panthers' org should be thrilled to see him sticking around for the next several seasons as LA's playoff pushes get serious.

Between the two played a much younger player - Adam Prpich. Adam wasn't expected to be the playdriver on his line, nor was he the primary scoring threat, but he demonstrated a tenacity and hunger for the spotlight that will serve him well as this team's top center going forward. Passenger centers don't put up five goals, five assists, ten points in twelve playoff games and I don't care who their wingers are. His advanced stats, especially offensively, show room for improvement, but his faceoff percentage of 55 across all 12 playoff games made him exceptionally useful for a young center in such a high pressure situation. Prpich performed admirably, and as time goes on and he gains more experience and maturity as a player, he'll be a fine top center for a Panthers team that aims to go deep season after season.

The top of LA's defense cannot be described as a pair; rather, the team has three top defensemen who cannot be discussed separately in fairness. This top three consisted of Pass Forfeit, Aleksi Kettu, and Pasta the Turtle, who brought an element of veteran stability to the team that was absolutely required for the youngsters of the squad to perform as well as they did. The blue line, especially, anchors the team and gives the forwards the time and space to grow. Maintaining a pair like this to lead the defense was shrewd work by the Panther's general manager, and while one of these players may not stay for the full era of Los Angeles hockey to come, his contributions to building it should not be understated. I'll address each in turn.

Pass Forfeit is the younger of the two, playing on the left side. A two-way anchor, Forfeit was acquired from the Manhattan Rage after his sophomore season - a decision the Rage are now poised to regret as he comes into his own for the Panthers. He exceeded his previous playoff points watermark of 6, with two more points in twelve less games. And this while he begins to lean into his offensive potential; as a rookie on the Rage's deep run he'd been used as a pure shutdown defenseman in limited minutes, neither of which held true in Los Angeles. While a second-round exit could never be confused with the promised land by a player who's smelled the air Forfeit has, as a sign of things to come, he should hold his head high. Big things are coming his way.

Pasta the Turtle is a legend on the ice and off, whose defensie brilliance has never quite been rewarded by his teams. After toiling his way to four consecutive first rounds of futility in Edmonton, he spent the longest stretch of his career with the Chicago Syndicate, helping them to a few solid playoff runs as a defensive stalwart. Now, on the Panthers' first line, he's embraced his role as a mentor. His steadfast presence unlocks Forfeit's offense, calms the very young forward corps, and never fails to bring a smile to Brzeczyszczykiewicz's face. While he was not the Panther's best shutdown defenseman this season, an honor which goes to Aleksi Kettu, Pasta took the brunt of the team's penalty killing minutes. Ever a true veteran, Turtle was the warrior this team needed, when it needed it.

Aleksi Kettu is one of the most unique players in the SHL. Beginning his career as a centerman, he pivoted to defense after his rookie season with the Panthers. Working without recognition for the past two seasons to master his game, he's now emerged as one of the league's best shutdown defensemen and still has room to grow. His forward instincts serve him well in this role; he plays a similar style of technique-focused defense to that of Reed Kobo. The Panthers, especially on the backend, are not an exceptionally physical team, but Kettu demonstrates that even on the blue line you don't always have to record a hit to separate a forward from the puck. Ketty is much more physical that any of the team's forwards in the sense of sacrificing his body; his 27 blocked shots ranked second on the team, behind only Slip McScruff's 31. The fact that a player I haven't even mentioned yet lead this team in shots should indicate two things: first, how hard it was to narrow this piece down to a manageable list of players; second, how much depth this Panthers team actually has.

Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz is the Panther's backstop, the rookie goalie, called up a year early, getting his first taste of professional action. While he was rather mediocre during the season, neither getting cratered nor being far below league average, his playoff performance was well beyond his regular season performance. With the exception of that final game against Edmonton, he turned in a playoff performance well above average and far exceeding the expectations placed on him as an underage rookie. The last game, it needs to be said, was a 12-0 shutout by the Edmonton Blizzard and single-handedly ruined the aggregate stats of the entire Panthers team, but Grzegorz was left in for all 12 goals, at his own insistence. When checking his performance over the Panthers' full playoff run, don't just look at the median and assume that would be anything close to the mean.

To cap this off, I'll briefly summarize the performances and critical factors in LA's two highest highs of the playoffs, to focus on their future potential: the game seven closer against Seattle, and the team's only win of the Edmonton series.

In the final Seattle game, both teams were scoreless after the first period. The second featured two straight goals from the Panthers, first from grizzled veteran winger Jimmy Wagner to light the team on fire and prove to the youngsters that they could win this game, and second from one of said youngsters, Yannick Svoboda. Seattle scored to bring it within one before the end of the period, but the third was all Panthers. Reed Kobo and Yannick again, whose first goal would prove the game winner, scored to put the game away and secure a 4-1 win, and the series. Brzeczyszczykiewicz saved 26/27 shots for a 0.960 save percentage.

This was the game that put the league on notice and put the names Svoboda and Kobo on the map. These players played very well in the first period, a major part of the reason the game was scoreless going into the first intermission, but truly took over the game in the second and third periods. To stop the Panthers, you must shut down this line. This lesson, Edmonton would learn well, but the real strength of this Panthers team came out to shine in game two of that very series.

Svoboda and Kobo did not have bad games there, but the Blizzard clogged them up enough to prevent them from carrying the game on their own. Svoboda still put up incredible offense generation underlying metrics, but his lackluster defense was exposed. On this occasion, Kobo saved it, but this also prevented Kobo from fully leveraging his own offense. This pattern would sink the Panthers in the other four games of the series, especially the disastrous game five, but in this game that alone was not enough for the Blizzard to come away with a win.

The first goal of the first period went to the Blizzard, and where LA's offense couldn't break through, their defense could. Pasta the Turtle broke through to tie the game off a rocket from the blue line. Just like the final game against Seattle, the veteran presence came through and set the tempo. It didn't take long for the team to respond. After Edmonton went up 2-1, the emerging rookie defenseman Nathan Meagher scored one off a dirt nasty pinch to tie the game again going into the second period. The floodgates opened in the second period. Pass Forfeit scored for 3-2, then Adam Prpich for 4-2, and though Edmonton then got one back, who else but Yannick Svoboda punched in the dagger to achieve the final goal of the game. A very important note here is that the third star of the game, one of two from Los Angeles, was a Panthers legend on his final tour - Long John Donair.

While the Panthers didn't prove a match for Edmonton over a full series, a young team won a series it was never expected to and has set the right tone for its emergence as a contender going forward. As old legends retire, new ones will establish themselves. And who knows, perhaps some poor league tech will struggle to fit the name "Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz" on the base of the Challenge Cup.

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