Panthers can’t pull it off
Four-game win streak ends with loss to Kings.
SUNRISE — As the Panthers climbed from the edge of irrelevancy to the cusp of a playoff race, they chased an invisible and omnipresent opponent. They hunted the scoreboard, filled with results around the league and littered with teams the Panthers cheered for and rooted against.
It was a necessary chore, but prior to the Panthers’ 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Friday night, it slipped down the team’s list of priorities. Florida rode a four-game winning streak into the game, pulling within six points of the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, despite playing the fewest games in the league.
The Kings ended the streak, dampening the optimism that followed a hot spell by scoring twice in the second period to erase an early deficit and hand the Panthers their first loss in 15 days.
Aaron Ekblad scored for the Panthers on the power play, marking the second straight game the second power-play unit scored a goal. Ekblad has goals in two of his last three games, continuing a three-game point streak.
The game ended a three-game home stand and sent the Panthers on a seasonlong, five-game, 10-day road trip that begins in Edmonton on Monday and ends in Toronto on Feb. 20.
It soured the remarkable run by Harri Sateri, the third-string goaltender who rose from obscurity to win four games in a row and become one of the hottest players in the NHL. He made 23 saves in his seventh career NHL start.
Panthers coach Bob Boughner planned to ride Sateri while he played well, and the loss could spell the end of Sateri’s roll, with James Reimer ready and Roberto Luongo eyeing a return next week. Both Reimer and Luongo are back practicing after groin injuries.
It dented the balance in Florida’s top two lines, with Denis Malgin the only topsix forward to record a point on Friday night. The other five were held off the scoresheet, including the end of Aleksander Barkov’s three-game point streak.
Boughner was dissatisfied with the lineup through the first two periods, blending the lines for the third period that placed Vincent Trocheck and Evgenii Dadonov with Barkov, among other changes.
With a win, the Panthers had a chance to inch closer to the postseason. They hadn’t been five points out in a month. The loss pushed them farther away, not that Boughner and the Panthers are scoreboard watching.
“I think about a month ago, we were concentrating on the standings and trying to climb over and looking at the scoreboard every night,” Boughner said before the game. “We’ve sort of simplified it in the last little while. Just preparing for our opponent and strictly talking about L.A. yesterday. Obviously, L.A. today.”
Ekblad’s goal was his 11th of the season and his 48th of his career, the most by a Panthers’ defenseman in a four-year span. After a puck rebounded off the boards behind the goal, it found Ekblad below the left dot. Kings defenseman Alec Martinez slid to block the shot, just as goalie Jonathan Quick also took away the bottom of the net. So Ekblad scooped it into the roof of the net.
A pair of goals from Los Angeles’ fourth line cancelled Ekblad’s tally. Nick Shore danced around Alexander Petrovic to tie the game at 1 at 3:09 of the second period. As Shore grabbed the puck, Petrovic dropped to a knee, but Shore escaped him to the slot and evaded a futile stick check.
Jonny Brodzinski gave the Kings the lead on a fluttering puck that beat Sateri. In a possession after a Denis Malgin turnover in the offensive zone, Brodzinski drifted above the right circle and flung a backhand past a sliding Mike Matheson. The puck floated, then deflected off Malgin and past Sateri.
The Panthers had prime chances to tie the game late in the second period, but Dadonov hit a post, Barkov couldn’t bury a shot from the goalline and Jamie McGinn’s shot just clipped Quick.
Anze Kopitar added an insurance goal in the third period by finishing a 2-on-1 just 25 seconds into the final frame.
The Panthers still trail the entire Metropolitan Division in their quest for the playoffs, including the high-flying Islanders, the struggling Blue Jackets and the selling Rangers. So Boughner said the Panthers have adopted a playoff mindset with 30 games remaining this season. The stretch isn’t the precursor to the playoffs to Boughner; it is the team’s playoffs.
“These next 25-30 games, it doesn’t matter who we play,” Boughner said. “L.A.’s fighting for their life. We’re fighting for our life. This is our playoffs.”