Panthers come out flat in 1st period, never recover in loss at Chicago
Paul Maurice attempted to put the Florida Panthers’ first period of their 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday into a grander, glass-half-full perspective.
“We play 246 periods [in a season],” the coach said. “I’m hoping that was our worst.”
The Panthers (5-4-1), who saw their four-game point streak snapped, gave up three goals in the span of just over six minutes in the middle of that opening period and never recovered to end their three-game road trip with a whimper.
Florida went 1-1-1 on the trip, losing in overtime to Boston on Monday and then winning in Detroit on Thursday.
Just how bad were those opening 20 minutes for Florida? Consider the following:
Prior to Saturday, the Panthers had allowed just four total goals in the first period in their first nine games. The Blackhawks (4-6-0) nearly equaled that alone on Saturday.
The Blackhawks outshot Florida 14-6 in the opening 20 minutes.
Chicago fired off the first five shots on goal against the Panthers’ Anthony Stolarz and had a 1-0 lead on Nick Foligno’s tap-in in front of the net on a power play that bounced off Florida defenseman Gustav Forsling before Florida even managed to get its first shot on goal.
Nikita Zaitsev doubled Chicago’s lead nearly three minutes later with a shot from the slot with the game at four-on-four to double Chicago’s lead.
Taylor Hall capped scoring in the frame with 7:21 left in the period.
“We didn’t make it easy on ourselves tonight,” defenseman Oliver EkmanLarsson said. “We came out pretty slow and gave away some goals, I feel like. That’s not our style.”
Florida got back to its style over the final 40 minutes, outshooting Chicago 34-10 over the second and third periods, but it was too little too late.
The Panthers were behind 4-0 entering the fourth period after Connor Bedard, the Blackhawks’ 18-year-old rookie phenom and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft, added to Chicago’s lead with an uncontested shot from the left circle 5:29 into the second period.
Florida scored twice in the third period to get the game competitive late. Ekman-Larsson broke up the shutout when his slap shot from the point on the power play got past Chicago goaltender Petr Mrazek with 13:27 left in regulation.
Matthew Tkachuk then cut the Panthers’ deficit to two goals with a backhanded shot from just in front of the net on a feed from Carter Verhaeghe with 7:31 left to play.
The goal was Tkachuk’s 500th career point — 118 of which have come in 89 games with Florida.
“After the first break, there was nothing else for us to do but find a way out of it,” Maurice said.
“You are going to have a tough period every once in a while in this league — and we had one. Loved the way they played after. We were desperate, determined, strong and dominant.
But the Panthers got no closer, and Chicago’s Philipp Kurashev capped scoring with an empty-net goal with 11 seconds left to play.
UP NEXT
The Panthers play four games this week: a Monday home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Washington Capitals on the road Wednesday, then hosting the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday and Blackhawks on Sunday.