Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Panthers’ focus is on future
Whether it be a surprising coaching change, injuries to their top forwards or a grueling schedule, the Panthers have shown that there is no quit in them.
Despite losing five of six games on their 11-day road trip, the Panthers salvaged a respectable five of 12 points, thanks to back-to-back, third-period comebacks against quality opponents that ended in overtime losses to Boston and Philadelphia.
Neither general manager and interim coach Tom Rowe nor his players have any interest in looking in the rear-view mirror, especially with 10 of their next 14 games at home. They also realize that they’re 12-11-4 and just three points out of a postseason berth with twothirds of the season remaining.
Tucked away in their memory banks is that their franchise-record 12-game winning streak last season didn’t start until Dec. 15.
“We are moving on. We’re moving forward,” Rowe said Tuesday after the 3-2 overtime loss to the Flyers that Jussi Jokinen tied up with 4:46 left in regulation. “It’s a great group of guys, great players, a lot of fun to coach, and we have a lot of great days ahead of us.”
Jokinen, who snapped an eight-game point drought with his second goal of the season, said Wednesday’s day off was just what the team needed.
“It felt like a one-month trip,” Jokinen joked. “I think overall it will be nice to go home and spend [time] with the family, and get our thoughts away from hockey.
“If we keep playing the way we have been playing we will be able to get a lot of points.”
They also can take some solace in that they ran into some hot goalies in Philadelphia’s Steve Mason (five wins in a row and NHL First Star of the Week honors); Boston’s Tuukka Rask (tied for the league lead with 14 wins and first among starters with a 1.68 goals-against average); Ottawa’s Mike Condon (.945 save percentage) and Chicago’s Corey Crawford, who won three in a row before a ruptured appendix sidelined him after he stymied the Panthers with 38 saves.
Sure, coming home to face the Metropolitan Division-leading, Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and superstar Sydney Crosby, who has 17 goals in 20 games, isn’t exactly a welcome respite.
But Rowe’s newly implemented zone defense, a few line tweaks and his shortening of minutes for his bottom six forwards to keep his best players on the ice longer seem to be sinking in. The Panthers have allowed nine regulation goals in the five games Rowe has been behind the bench and have killed off 19 of 20 power plays.
Despite playing their second game in 24 hours, the Panthers put up a seasonhigh 44 shots on net and outshot the Flyers 85-51 overall (including shots that miss the net or are blocked).
“If we pulled off the win [Tuesday], it would’ve been a .500 trip, so if that was offered to us before considering all that happened, we would’ve been satisfied, but not that happy, with it,” Panthers captain Derek MacKenzie said. “We got to look at the positives. I’m proud of the way the guys reacted to everything and how they pulled together. We’re committed to getting this thing going the right way.
“Hockey’s an honest game. You just can’t flip a switch and start winning games. You got to sometimes start from the bottom and work your way up. I think we’ve done that the last few games. We went through a lot of stuff.
“These young guys have a lot of great guys like [Jokinen, Shawn Thornton and Roberto Luongo] to lean on. We’ll be all right. … We’re too good, and we’ll work our way out of this.”