No days off: Panthers alter practice routine
The Panthers had two days off between their rout of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday and their next game against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, but they didn’t use it to get any time away from the ice.
They won’t take a day off Friday, either, and even plan to practice Sunday before they fly halfway across the country to face the Minnesota Wild on Monday.
This is the new routine for the Panthers — no days off — and Paul Maurice believes it’s a big part of why Florida has finally started to turn its season around.
“We started skating on our off days, not taking days off, and I think that really led into the back half of that month,” the coach said Tuesday. “We were stronger, executing a little better, even when we got real tired, so we’re going to go back to that template and try to skate as much as we can.
“My theory ... is we may have overdone it. We may have overdone time off the ice.”
Across every major sports league, teams are practicing less frequently than ever — the Heat, only a few dozen miles away, often will go more than a week without a practice — and yet the Panthers are choosing to go in the other direction, not necessarily because Maurice feels they need to get better or implement new systems, but because he found it helped throughout January when Florida basically had nothing else to do.
The Panthers played nine of 15 games on the road last month, including at one point nine of 11 in 19 days, and Florida practiced on many of those off days because it’s not like players and staff were preoccupied with things at home, anyway.
It’s not like these practice sessions are long, either. The Panthers usually fly to a new city immediately after a road game, get their necessary sleep and then hit the ice for something like an hour.
As a trade-off, Maurice makes his morning skates entirely optional and said Florida could start frequently canceling them altogether down the stretch.
“I have no time for morning skates now,” he said. “We’re going to try to move away from those as much as possible.”
Practices are generally more productive than morning skates, even when teams make them mandatory.
“We get a chance to push them to speed,” Maurice said. “Our duration isn’t long, but we get a chance to practice at pace. The morning skates aren’t at pace. They’re getting ready for the game.
“There’s a conditioning value — you can get back into the gym a little, you can do off-ice lifts, you can maintain your strength — but also an execution value to it. You can practice at pace, you can push a little harder at practice.”
BARKOV MISSES GAME
An apparent hand injury kept Aleksander Barkov out Thursday for Florida’s game against the Sharks in Sunrise.
The All-Star center missed the final 28:04 of the Panthers’ blowout Monday, then didn’t participate in either of Florida’s practices Tuesday or Wednesday, although he did skate by himself before practice Wednesday. On Wednesday, Maurice said Barkov’s status would be a game-time decision before ruling out the captain Thursday.
The Panthers still don’t expect Barkov’s injury to be a long-term concern, though.
His absence, Maurice said, is more for precautionary reasons, and he could return Saturday when Florida hosts the Colorado Avalanche to wrap up a five-game homestand.