"It was fun to watch," coach Joel Quenneville said. "The guys really had a lot of energy and great speed. With our exits and our transition game, the changes almost looked like we had an odd-man rush coming. We just kept doing it. I liked the rotation. I liked the speed of our game."
With an opportunity to pad their position as the top team in the Central Division, the Panthers (12-3-2) will now attempt to bring that same high level of intensity when they host the Stars (5-4-4) in the second meeting of their three-game set at BB&T Center on Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET.
"Against good teams, you have to do those things," forward Patric Hornqvist said of Florida's effort in Game 1. "If we can keep doing the same thing, I'm pretty sure we can get more goals."
For the Panthers, the goals have certainly been flowing in the early goings of this season.
Carrying the league's fifth-ranked offense (3.41 goals per game) and eighth-ranked power play (28.6%) into tonight's matchup, Jonathan Huberdeau leads the team in scoring with 23 points (seven goals, 16 assists), while Aleksander Barkov is second with 19 (seven goals, 12 assists).
"You just want to keep being close and making small plays," Hornqvist, who leads the team with eight goals, said when asked about the keys to a strong attack. "There's no standing still out there. You've got to always be moving - move to the puck, move before you get the puck."
With a chance to push his personal winning streak to five games, Chris Driedger will make his second straight start for the Panthers after stopping 24 of 25 shots in Monday's victory. Through nine appearances this season, the 26-year-old has gone 7-1-1 behind a .929 save percentage.
With Driedger starting the first half of the back-to-back tonight, Quenneville said that it's "very likely" that Sergei Bobrovsky, who is 5-2-1, will get the nod for the second half on Thursday.
"He made a couple big saves after the first goal," Quenneville said of Driedger after Monday's win. "I thought he settled down a little bit. In the third he still found a way to battle and kept his composure in tight situations. He does what he has to do. I like the way he keeps moving on."
Across the ice, the Stars are looking to break out of a rough slump.
With Monday's loss to the Panthers, the team dropped its sixth straight game. After opening up the season with four straight victories, Dallas has lost eight of its last nine overall. In that nine-game span, they've been outscored 29-22 while netting just one-or-fewer goals in four contests.
Joe Pavelski leads the Stars with 17 points (nine goals, eight assists), but has posted just two - both goals - over his last five games. John Klingberg leads the team's blueliners with 12 points (two goals, 10 assists), while forwards Denis Gurianov and Alexander Radulov have 11 apiece.
"We just fell apart," Klingberg said after Monday's loss. "It's sports, it happens, but it's not acceptable the way it happened. Just shift after shift we just cracked everywhere. We're not in the right spots and we turned the puck over in the wrong places all the time. We get long shifts out there, so we have to ice it or chip it out and we have to stay out longer, so it's a bad circle."
In the opposing crease, the Cats will draw Anton Khudobin once again. Sitting at 3-4-1 with a .915 save percentage, the 34-year-old veteran tied a career-high with 49 saves on Monday.
"He's a great goalie," Barkov said of Khudobin's admirable performance last game. "He did a great job today. Facing 50-plus shots is not an easy thing to do. I think we did a good job."
Over their last four meetings with the Stars, the Panthers own a 3-1-0 record.
