I'd imagine we all have some vision for what we'd like to see out of this defensive core next season.

And I'd imagine within that, not all of us are necessarily thinking of this specific trait I'm about

to bring up. Good morning to you. Good. Wednesday morning, I'm Dan Kovachievich of D.K. Pittsburgh

Sports. This is Daily Shot of Penguins. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're

into football and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates, where you found this.

Game one of the Eastern Conference final last night in Raleigh, North Carolina, saw the Panthers beat the hurricanes 5 to 2.

It really was not the snooze fest that I'd been fearing, shared with you on

yesterday's show. And in fact, the one thing that I had hoped to see and also shared with you

was the Panthers being their growly selves for checking away, getting all the push deep in the Carolina zone,

getting some yucky goals.

And that's going to be, I'm sure, the way most people will have seen that specific event.

That's what it looked like, the Panthers being the Panthers.

But afterward, I was hit by one specific event. That's what it looked like. The Panthers being the Panthers. But afterward, I was hit by one specific advanced metric from this event. And that's that the Panthers had a 90% success rate

at exiting their defensive zone. Think about that for a second.

They would gain possession in the defensive zone, and they would make it out of there

90% of the time.

That's outstanding.

And it's a testament not just to a lot of their, you know, underappreciated.

I think their top defensemen get underappreciated in a league, Aaron Eckblad,

Nikola, but just all of them, not to mention how low their forwards are coming back

to make sure that they can get the puck and skate it out of the zone if needed.

They're just really tight.

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