Depth scoring has Panthers on verge of East Final again

TORONTO -- Scrolling down the list of Florida Panthers goal scorers, it takes a while to get to the zeros. They are there, at the very bottom, a few names. And that is what is most notable, that there are so few of them.

In 10 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, five in the Eastern Conference First Round against the Tampa Bay Lightning and five in the second round against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Panthers have gotten goals from 17 different skaters, becoming the first team in more than three decades -- since the 1993 Los Angeles Kings -- to have as many.

"I'm thinking that we've got 26 guys here, so that makes nine guys that are getting chirped pretty hard every day," coach Paul Maurice said.

But it's that, that depth, that ability to share the load offensively – including goals from six different players in a 6-1 win in Game 5 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday – that has gotten the Panthers here, within one win of their third consecutive Eastern Conference Final.

They now lead the Maple Leafs 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, with a chance to close it out on Friday at home at Amerant Bank Arena (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

"The goal is, feel good, right?" Maurice said. "Playoff goals, especially, but any time, a goal is what makes you feel good. When you've got a guy that's not scoring, it's always the same line of thinking -- I don't have my confidence, I don't have confidence. So as a coach, you're like, how do I give a guy confidence? Score harder? How do you do that?

"So the fact that you can spread it around, that they're all carrying into a game a belief, a reasonable belief that they can score because they have. In the last 10 games, they've scored a goal, they feel it. They feel good about where they're at. … To have a number of guys coming to the rink feeling good about their games is really important."

The Panthers' depth has been a hallmark of their team success, with both an offense and a defense that just keeps coming, in waves, over and over. That has been doubly true this postseason, with every line, every player dangerous.

"The way we play creates a lot of chaos, creates a lot of turnovers, and that game plan kind of brings in opportunity for every line to be successful offensively," said fourth-line forward A.J. Greer, who scored his first goal of the playoffs in Game 5. "You don't have to chase it. You really just have to do your job and once the opportunity comes, you've got to finish it off."

The Panthers are led by six goals from Sam Bennett and four from Carter Verhaeghe. Behind those two, five players have three goals (including noted goal scorer Nate Schmidt), four have two and six have one goal, a group which added Dmitry Kulikov, Jesper Boqvist, Niko Mikkola and Greer on Wednesday.

"We have really good players that are talented, that are playing up and down the lineup, offensively, defensively, so we don't necessarily look at lines one through four," Greer said. "Obviously there are guys that are more talented offensively, but I think everyone's got that touch and everyone can kind of play up and down that lineup.

"So it's been a huge factor in our success this year to have that depth in that 82-game season, along with the playoffs. We're definitely looking to build off that."

It leaves five skaters without goals in the playoffs and three who have played more than four games, led by Gustav Forsling, the only player who has played in all 10 games and hasn't scored. The others are Evan Rodrigues (nine games), Nico Sturm (seven), Mackie Samoskevich (four) and Tomas Nosek (three).

Sturm is the only player without a point.

"You can see how many guys have scored in our lineup and it gives a lot of confidence to the group," Forsling said. "It's fun to see the 'D' corps score a lot of goals – it's always fun."

So, for Forsling, maybe it's about time.

"I might have to get one tomorrow then," he joked Thursday.