Maurice puts new forward Tarasenko on top line in his debut with Panthers

The Panthers were already the best team in the NHL before they decided to shake up their roster Wednesday by swinging a trade for forward Vladimir Tarasenko. They had a roster with hardly any holes — and certainly none on their top line of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe — and decided to try to make it better by grabbing a four-time All-Star from the Ottawa Senators two days before the trade deadline.

Maybe there are going to be some growing pains. More likely, the Panthers’ 2-1 home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday — only their third loss in the last 19 games — will turn out to be more like an aberration, the type of loss bound to happen across an 82-game regular season and in a team’s fourth game in six days.

Florida outshot the Flyers, generated more high-danger chances and essentially played to a draw with Philadelphia before the Flyers scored a game-winning goal with 21.3 seconds left.

“They played hard. We kind of matched that,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “I think it was even.

We’d like to be better than even at home.”

That was about all he had to say about a rare loss. Instead, Maurice spent most of his time after the game discussing Tarasenko’s debut.

One loss during a long season won’t mean too much. The addition of Tarasenko almost certainly will.

For proof, look at what the Panthers (43-17-4) trusted him to do and what he actually did on the ice.

For Maurice’s part, he immediately stuck Tarasenko on the top line, putting him next to Barkov and Reinhart, breaking up a dynamic trium

virate to try to get even better.

Tarasenko, for the most part, looked worth the trust in his first game with his new team.

Although he took only two shots and generated just one scoring chance, Tarasenko was physical — he laid out two hits and took six — and blocked a shot in 15:09 of time on ice.

The blocked shot was a subtle play, but a telling one. Tarasenko was on the ice when a 4-on-4 sequence ended, and got stuck playing on an imperfect forward line next to fellow wingers Matthew Tkachuk and Verhaeghe. Someone had to go to center and Tarasenko, 32, took charge, quickly sliding into an unfamiliar role on defense and blocking a shot.

“I liked the small things that he did that are nonskill related,” Maurice said.

“The skill’s there. We’re not worried about any of that, but he blocked some shots and picked up the reads very, very quickly with a whole bunch of new systems.”

Above all else, experience and intuition might be what Tarasenko brings to Sunrise.

Even though he topped 20 goals only once in the last four years and has only 17 this season, Tarasenko won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019 and has played more than 700 games, including nearly 100 in the playoffs. As Florida guns for its first Cup, Tarasenko knows what it takes to win one.

“Everybody knows what he’s done in the past,” center Anton Lundell said. “We’re lucky to have him.”

For his part, Tarasenko feels lucky to be a Panther, too.

The one-year contract Tarasenko signed with

Ottawa in the offseason came with a no-move clause, effectively letting him choose his destination when the Senators decided to trade him this month. He chose Florida, where he lives in the offseason and where he knew another championship was realistically attainable.

The crowd of 18,817 Thursday night roared when the public address announcer called out Tarasenko’s name among the starters. Everyone knew what a move like this means for the Panthers. Once again, Florida is going for it.

“This,” Tarasenko said, “was the only place I thought about.”