Panthers ‘trying to find some energy,’ consistency amid latest wayward stretch
The Panthers were in the midst of another lull Sunday, and Paul Maurice knew something needed to change.
So with 6:45 left in the second period, with the Panthers down a goal to the Seattle Kraken, the coach called timeout, huddled his players around the bench and gave them an earful.
“I was trying to find some energy,” Maurice said. “I mean, clearly we didn’t have a whole lot . ... [It was] a quiet bench and you need to try to get a fire going.”
The intent was there. The result? Not so much.
Florida failed to score the rest of the way, and Seattle poured on three goals in the third period en route to a 5-2 Panthers loss on Sunday at FLA
Live Arena. This came one night after a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in which Florida also allowed three third-period goals.
“It just did not work,” Maurice said.
With that, the latest wayward stretch of Maurice’s first season with the Panthers continues. Sunday was the Panthers’ seventh consecutive game decided by at least three goals. Florida has lost four of those seven games.
Zooming out even more, the Panthers have yet to win more than two games in a row at any point through the first 29 games of the season. They enter Monday fifth in the Atlantic Division with a 13-12-4 record as they prepare to host two more games this week — against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday and Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.
It all came to a critical point of sorts in the second period Sunday when Maurice, normally very mild-mannered even in the worst of times, was visibly upset while talking to his team during the timeout with them down 2-1 and fresh off a pair of mistakes that led to a pair of Seattle scoring chances.
Maurice’s message during the impassioned timeout?
“We just needed to get quicker and simplify,” said veteran forward Eric Staal, whose goal earlier in the second period tied the score at 1-1. “We were feeding a lot of their turnover attacks with some of our plays. Guys are trying to do the right thing. You’re trying to make a play. You’re trying to open it up and make something happen, but this was one
of those games where there just wasn’t anything out there. It was tough. It was grindy. It was a hardchecking game and we need to do a better job of spending more [offensive] zone time. That’s our style. That’s what we’re good at is forechecking and pushing the other team’s defense and spending a lot of extended shifts in the offensive zone. We weren’t able to do that.”
The message inside the locker room remained upbeat. The effort is there, they said. The talent is there, they said, even if the team is missing some
of its core pieces. Center Anton Lundell (illness) has missed the past five games, defenseman Radko Gudas (concussion) four and goaltender Spencer Knight (illness) three. Veteran winger Patric Hornqvist is on long-term injured reserve. The team has also played seven games this season without star center Aleksander Barkov and 11 without top defenseman Aaron Ekblad.
“This loss is already behind us,” said goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. “We’ll have a day off [Monday] to reset, regroup
and get back to work. The biggest points and the biggest games are ahead of us.”
Staal added: “It’s about trusting how we’re going to play, and I think we’re learning. We’re definitely having some inconsistencies with it, but these are moments where you can rally together and play a style of game that we can all rely on and trust when we get everyone back healthy and feeling good.”