Panthers have produced early under Quenneville. The new goal: ‘keep climbing in the standings.’
The Florida Panthers don’t need look very far to see where they stand among the rest of the NHL. The reminders are constantly in sight on two monitors — one in a hallway just outside their dressing room at their practice facility in Coral Springs and another in the back left corner of their dressing room at the BB&T Center on game day.
Along with a rotating array of assignments and schedules, the Panthers see a clear view of the NHL standings. Most players tend to focus on the present, but having to glance at where they stand among the rest of the league has provided a subtle — yet resonating — push as they wade through the early portion of the season.
“I think everybody has a pretty good awareness to it,” said first-year Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, a three-time Stanley Cup winner during his tenure with the Chicago Blackhawks who picked up his 900th career win as an NHL head coach on Saturday. “We’ll remind them at times, but it’s a playoff race when we begin the season. It looks like it’s going to be that way. We want to make sure we do everything we can. Our division is as tough as ever. Let’s make sure we get points.”
They have done just that.
After a decade rife with slow starts that ultimately resulted in having to play catch up to be in playoff contention — and usually falling short — the Panthers are off to one of their best starts to a season in franchise history.
Their 10-5-5 record gives them 25 points and has them slotted as the No. 3 team in the Atlantic division behind the Montreal Canadiens (11-5-4, 26) and the Boston Bruins (12-3-5, 29).
It ties with the 2011-2012 season for the most points through 20 games this decade. Only three other Panthers teams in franchise history — the 1995-96 team (29), 1996-97 (29) and 1999-2000 (25) — had a better start in the standings a quarter of the way through the season.
All of those Panthers teams with at least 25 points through 20 games made the playoffs.
This season’s group staved off a gauntlet of a start to get to this point. In addition to the learning curve that comes with a new coach, the Panthers played 13 games against teams holding down playoff spots as of Monday, 12 games overall on the road and have faced three of the four division leaders — with two of those games away from the BB&T Center.
It’s putting them in prime position to return to the playoffs after a three-season hiatus.
“We’re in a good spot,” captain Aleksander Barkov said after practice Monday ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers. “We want to stay there. We want to keep climbing in the standings.”
Rally cats
The Panthers’ strong start to the season has come with its share of late-game theatrics.
Florida has trailed in half of its game heading into the third period this season. They’re 4-4-2 in those games — picking up 10 of a possible 20 points.
The Panthers have scored 29 of their 71 goals — more than 40 percent — in the final 20-minute period of regulation. Only the Nashville Predators, with 32, have more third-period goals.
Yes, the Rally Cats appear to be back.
And most of their big comebacks have come away from home.
▪ Oct. 11: The Panthers trailed the Buffalo Sabres 2-0 two minutes into the third period. Evgenii Dadonov scores four minutes later to cut the deficit in half before Mike Hoffman strikes with 10 seconds left in regulation to force overtime. Florida loses in shootout but picks up a point.
▪ Oct. 1: The Panthers trailed the New Jersey Devils 4-1 on the road barely a minute into the second period. Their response: Five unanswered goals for a 6-4 win.
▪ Oct. 24: Florida trailed the Calgary Flames 4-2 with about 15 minutes left in the first game of their four-game road trip through western Canada and Colorado. The Panthers score three goals in a 10-minute span to go up 5-4 but ultimately concede the game-tying goal with 2:43 left and lose in shootout to pick up one point.
▪ Oct. 30: After trailing the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 with 12:27 left in third period, Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau score back-to-back goals to tie it up. Huberdeau scores the game winner 29 seconds into overtime.
▪ Nov. 12: The Panthers made franchise history by overcoming a four-goal deficit after two periods to defeat the Boston Bruins 5-4 in a shootout.
“We match up against any team if we’re playing our best,” winger Brett Connolly said. “We can play against any team. We just have to keep getting better every day. We’ll take it from there.”
These rallies, and this mind-set, have helped the Panthers slowly, surely and meticulously picked up points.
While the goal is to win each game outright and get two points at the end of the night, Florida has maintained its steady place in the standings even without finishing with a W.
Florida has just five regulation losses and has not gone back-to-back games without earning at least one point.
“We’re not letting things linger,” defenseman Keith Yandle said. “Our highs aren’t too high. Our lows aren’t too low.”
Offensive juggernaut
The backbone of the Panthers’ success has come on the offensive side of the game.
Their 71 goals ties the franchise record through 20 games with the 1995-96 team that reached the Stanley Cup Finals, the only Panthers team that has won a playoff series.
The Panthers’ top line of Barkov, Huberdeau and Dadonov are once again doing the heavy lifting — Dadonov leads the team with 10 goals while Barkov (six goals, 19 assists) and Huberdeau (nine goals, 18 assists) are one of three duos from the same team with at least 25 points apiece so far this season.
But the Panthers are seeing contributions from everyone. They are one of three teams with six players who have scored at least six goals — Hoffman (eight), Connolly (seven) and Frank Vatrano (six) are the others. Overall, 17 players have posted at least one goal.
They have some of the best power play production in the league, with their 26.6 percent efficiency on the man advantage ranking fourth in NHL and is just a shade below last season’s franchise-best 26.77 rate. The Panthers have scored 11 power-play goals over the last nine games.
“We’re getting some balance in our lineup,” Quenneville said.
Defense still work in progress
But even with a potent offense, the Panthers’ defense and goaltending needs to take a step forward over the rest of the season if they want to contend for their first Stanley Cup title.
Florida is giving up an average of 3.55 goals per game — the fourth-most in the league — and have been outscored 21-15 in the first period so far this season.
Sergei Bobrovsky, the two-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender who the Panthers signed for $70 million over seven years, has made spectacular saves at big moments multiple times this year, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that his .882 save percentage is the second-worst in the league among goalies with at least 500 minutes of ice time.
“Everyone goes through stretches where you’re at your best and other times when you’re up against it, regardless of the position. It’s magnified in goal,” Quenneville said. “Just have to find your way through it and collectively, I think we all can help.”
What’s ahead
After a slew of road trips to start the season, the Panthers will have the comfort of playing on home ice for the next few weeks. They close out a four-game homestand with games against Philadelphia on Tuesday and the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday before traveling to the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. After that, 10 of their next 11 are at the BB&T Center, where the Panthers are 4-2-2 on the year.
“We want to establish that we’re a good home team,” Barkov said, “and that it’s tough to play in Florida against us.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 2:34 PM.
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