Reeling Florida Panthers head to the West Coast for make-or-beak, five-game road trip
The Florida Panthers’ most impressive run of the season — just a month ago now — ended away from the BB&T Center. The Panthers took a six-game winning streak into the NHL All-Star Game last month, winning the final three on the road in the Midwest. It springboarded Florida into a 10-day break as one of the hottest teams in hockey with an offense sitting atop the league in goals per game.
The extended break quashed all the Panthers’ momentum, though. Florida has dropped 7 of 9 since the All-Star break and finds its season now on the brink disaster with a potentially crushing series of games on the horizon. On Monday, the Panthers begin a five-game road trip — their longest consecutive road trip of the season — against the San Jose Sharks. It’s a trip which could either reignite Florida’s season or send it crashing to disappointment.
“It’s going to be big,” All-Star winger Jonathan Huberdeau said. “We’ve got to be over .500, for sure. We’ve got to start winning some games. We’re so close. I think we’re just slipping away since the All-Star break.”
The trip could be difficult because any extended trip out to the West Coast can be tricky, but it also presents a chance for the Panthers (30-22-6) to pick up some wins against a group of mostly non-playoff teams in the Western Conference. Florida opens the trip against the Sharks (26-28-4) on Monday at 4 p.m. in San Jose and then faces four more West teams across the next eight days. The Sharks, Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings — the first three teams the Panthers face on the trip — are among the worst in the NHL. The Vegas Golden Knights and Arizona Coyotes, whom the road trip ends against, are both fringe postseason teams.
Florida finished its winless two-game homestand four points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for the third and final playoff spot in the Atlantic Division. It enters the road trip five points behind the Philadelphia Flyers for the second and final Wild Card berth in the Eastern Conference. The pressure is on to make up ground away from Sunrise.
“We didn’t take advantage of two games at home, we can’t do that right now,” Huberdeau said. “There’s no emotion. It starts with us — me and [Aleksander Barkov]. We’ve got to pick it up.”
Huberdeau scored two of the Panthers’ three goals in South Florida last week, but the first line of Huberdeau, Barkov and winger Evgenii Dadonov hasn’t replicated its first-half success since the break. Those three combined for one goal and one assist in a 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday, and Barkov didn’t account for either. The trio’s collective plus-minus was negative-6 and the three have combined for a plus-minus of negative-12 since the All-Star break.
Florida went into the All-Star break leading the NHL with 3.7 goals per game. In just nine games, the Panthers have slipped all the way to fifth at 3.4 per game after scoring just 18 goals in February.
“Of course when you don’t win games and nothing’s going on, you’re frustrated, but obviously we all know when we play well, when we play the right way, we win games, we have fun,” Barkov said. “When we do it, we’re fine, but it has to be a 60-minute game.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 4:47 PM.
