In about a month, the Florida Panthers will host the NHL All-Star Game. But instead of the event shining a light on a once-bumbling franchise that has turned itself around, the weekend festivities may happen alongside the sad truth that “here we go again” is still part of the Panthers experience.
On Saturday, Florida surrendered three power-play goals to the streaking Carolina Hurricanes in a 4-0 loss. Twenty-four hours later the Cats were hosting the New York Rangers and from the moment Mika Zibanejad breezed through Marc Staal, Radko Gudas and Aleksander Barkov to score the game-opening goal in the first period, you had the feeling it might not be Florida’s day. It wasn’t and the Blueshirts left with a 5-3 victory.
The Rangers, of course, are on that list of teams that struggled to live up to expectations for a spell, but have found a way to get un-tracked. The Washington Capitals also fit that description and, for a while, it was easy to think Florida would eventually get hot and surge into the playoff picture. After all, the Panthers finished with a league-best 122 points last season and their underlying numbers — at least for a bit — told a story that differed with their middling results.
But here we sit, barely a week from the season’s halfway point, and the Panthers are eight points behind the second wild-card in the Eastern Conference with four teams between them and the final playoff spot. Three of those squads — Detroit, Buffalo and Ottawa — are fellow Atlantic Division clubs, meaning the Presidents’ Trophy winners from a year ago actually sit second-to-last in their own division.
Oh, by the way, the only Atlantic team worse than Florida — the Montreal Canadiens — holds the Panthers’ unprotected 2023 first-round pick. And the way things have been trending, it seems like a lock that selection will be part of the draft lottery for non-playoff teams.
After dropping both weekend games, Florida has just six wins in its past 18 outings. During that time the Cats rank 19th in goals-per-game (3.08) and 23rd in goals against (3.61). From the start of the year through Dec. 1, Florida ranked third in expected goals at five-on-five. Since then, it has slipped to 17th.
Sergei Bobrovsky, who took the loss on Sunday, has an .894 save percentage; Spencer Knight is slightly better at .907.
Certainly it doesn’t help that both Barkov and Aaron Ekblad have spent chunks of time out of the lineup, but this team was supposed to be built to withstand some blows. The summertime blockbuster that sent homegrown success stories Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to Calgary for Matthew Tkachuk was executed with the second season in mind and I think we all saw the Panthers were willing to take a regular-season step back in the hopes of making two forward come playoff time.
But even with Tkachuk on pace for another 100-point season, the Panthers have lost their footing. After hosting the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday, Florida will set out for nine of 11 on the road, where its .375 points percentage ranks 28th in the league.
Who knows, maybe by the time we gather for the All-Star Game in early February we’ll be talking about a stunning Cats turnaround. The way it stands, though, that weekend might be filled with some tough questions for a franchise that hoped the bad ol’ days were behind it.
Other Takeaways
• Make it four straight wins for the Stars after they dumped the San Jose Sharks 5-2 in Big D on New Year’s Eve. The Stars, who are taking on the look of a real contender, have just one regulation-time loss in their past nine and have chased down the Vegas Golden Knights to move into a tie for the top spot in the Western Conference (while holding a game in hand on the Knights).
Jason Robertson scored his 25th of the year on Saturday, and while he’s obviously been getting the love, save some fist bumps for Roope Hintz. The big Finn scored his sixth goal in five outings versus San Jose and, with 19 on the year, is actually only six back of Robertson for the team lead.
• It’s sometimes tough to square what’s happening in Detroit in terms of the Red Wings turning a corner in their rebuild. A team that registered 74 points last year is, after Saturday’s 4-2 win in Ottawa, on pace for over 90 this season under first-year coach Derek Lalonde. That’s a feel-good story. Still, the Wings have a negative goal-differential, less-than-encouraging underlying numbers, and both Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond are experiencing some version of a sophomore slump (though Raymond has got it going lately with six points in his past six games, including 1-1-2 versus the Sens).
The past three games sort of feel like a microcosm of the entire Wings experience. Detroit fell behind Ottawa 2-0 on Saturday before coming back with four unanswered tallies. The game prior, the Wings spotted the Sabres four goals in what eventually became a 6-3 defeat and the outing before that also saw Detroit fall behind by four before storming back to steal a 5-4 overtime win off the Penguins. That’s four of a possible six points in games where they were down two, four, and four goals, respectively. Good results, probably not the ideal process, though.
• With the Winter Classic going Monday afternoon in Boston and the league officially announcing on Saturday it will mark the 20th anniversary of the first regular-season outdoor game with a Heritage Classic between Calgary and Edmonton next fall, I got to thinking: At this point, which franchises have not played the NHL version of pond hockey yet? Your answer — if you don’t count Carolina, which plays its first in February — is four teams: Seattle (of course), Arizona, Florida and Columbus.
Weekend Warrior
We mentioned the young guys driving the Dallas Stars, but cagey old Joe Pavelski might have had the best weekend of anybody in Dallas, picking up a goal and two apples in the win over San Jose — where he played for 13 seasons — and putting pen to paper on a one-year contract extension that will see him return to the Stars next year for his age-39 season. This is Pavelski’s fourth season in Dallas and it’s remarkable what he’s done there in the winter of his career. Wipe out his first year in Texas and he’s basically a point-per-game player (169 in 176) since the start of the 2020-21 campaign. He’s also got 16 goals in 34 playoff games with Dallas. If this team gets over the top in the next year or two, you know this guy will be right in the middle of it.
Red and White Powering Rankings
1. Toronto Maple Leafs (23-8-6) Between now and mid-February, the Buds play 14 of 19 at home, starting Tuesday versus the Blues. Can they use this run to chase down the Atlantic-leading Bruins and avoid Tampa in Round 1?
2. Winnipeg Jets (23-13-1) Kyle Connor’s slow start — two goals through 14 games — is a seriously distant memory now. After his 1-1-2 showing Saturday night — including the game-winner in the third — in a gut-it-out 2-1 victory over the Oilers, the left-winger has 22 points in his past 15 outings.
3. Calgary Flames (18-13-7) Jacob Markstrom won for the fourth time in his past five starts on Saturday as the Flames edged Vancouver in Calgary. The big Swede has a .910 save percentage in those games — not spectacular, but it’s a start for a Vezina-calibre goalie who’s needs the second half of this season to be better than the first.
4. Edmonton Oilers (20-16-2) The Jets halted Connor McDavid’s 17-game point streak on Saturday, marking just the second time since Oct. 24 No. 97 was kept off the scoresheet.
5. Ottawa Senators (17-17-3) With a pair on Sunday versus the Sabres (including one into an empty net), Tim Stützle has four goals in his past five outings and a nice little five-game point streak going.
6. Vancouver Canucks (16-17-3) It just feels like every time you watch the Canucks this year they’re either in the midst of blowing a three-goal lead or feverishly trying to come back from a three-goal deficit. It was the latter, on Saturday, and they came up just short in Calgary.
7. Montreal Canadiens (15-19-3) Things have gotten grim in a hurry as the Habs were pasted 9-2 by Washington on Saturday on the heels of a 7-2 loss to Florida. The new year will surely bring more losses, but this team has to prove it can be competitive again.
The Week Ahead
• The Hurricanes will try to make it 12 in a row on Tuesday when they visit the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
• Tuesday also marks two months until the March 3 trade deadline … just sayin’.
• The World Junior Championship wraps with the gold-medal game on Thursday. If teams weren’t already dreaming on the possibility of drafting Connor Bedard, my lord are they ever doing it now.
