Florida Panthers’ point streak comes to a halt with regulation loss to Red Wings
The Florida Panthers’ point streak to start the season has come to an end.
Despite an aggressive offensive attack once again, Florida could barely get a shot past Detroit Red Wings goaltender Thomas Greiss in their 4-1 loss on Sunday at the BB&T Center.
This was Florida’s first loss in regulation this season. The Panthers are now 6-1-2 on the season. The Red Wings, which had lost eight consecutive games (two of which came in overtime), are now 3-8-2.
“Outside of today’s game, I thought we’ve been consistent in most games,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “Whether we’re ahead or behind, we don’t change the approach. Today it seemed like we were chasing the game more than in the past.
“It’s going to be a test every night.”
The Red Wings out-shot the Panthers 38-37 over the course of the game. Florida’s top-line trio of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Anthony Duclair combined for 12 of the Panthers’ shots on goal.
While the total shots were equal, the Panthers had more scoring chances. According to the advance statistics website Natural Stat Trick, Florida had a 25-15 edge in scoring chances on Sunday. Eleven of those 25 for the Panthers came from Verhaeghe, Barkov and Duclair.
But Greiss, who came into the game with a career 5-2-3 record and .923 save percentage against Florida, held strong. The Detroit goaltender stopped 36 of 37 shots that came his way, including the first 27 he faced.
“On every shot, he was there” Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. “He wasn’t giving up good rebounds outside of his crease. He was really good. We just have to come back Tuesday, be better and find the back of the net.”
Quenneville added: “I thought we had a good start to the game. I didn’t think we had the quality or the quantity as the game went on that we would have liked. ... We didn’t get enough shots through, enough traffic to create the quality we wanted.”
Alex Wennberg broke up the shutout when he tipped in a long shot from Anton Stralman with 17:51 left in regulation to make the score 2-1. It was Wennberg’s first goal of the season and the only goal Florida could muster. Greiss stopped the final nine shots while Detroit added two more goals to pull away.
“Too bad we couldn’t feed off that,” Wennberg said of his goal.
Marc Stall, Givani Smith and Robby Fabbri scored for the Red Wings against Chris Driedger, who stopped 33 of 36 shots he faced. Vladislav Namestnikov added an empty net goal with 2:42 left in regulation.
Through five starts, Chris Driedger has a 3-1-1 record, a .936 save percentage and a 1.97 goals against average.
“He had a good game,” Quenneville said. “Thought he gave us a chance, kept us going. Obviously we didn’t press enough at the end.”
The Panthers and Red Wings play again at 7 p.m. Tuesday as Florida continues its six-game homestand. The Panthers are 2-1-0 against the Red Wings this season, winning the first two games of the eight-game regular-season series in Detroit by identical 3-2 scores.
“We can’t bury our heads too much,” Wennberg said. “It’s a different schedule. We’re playing them again. That’s a great chance to get back at it.”
Another fourth-line change
The turnstile that has become the left wing spot on the Panthers’ fourth line continued spinning on Sunday.
The latest player to get time at the spot: Mason Marchment. The 25-year-old spent the game on a line with center Juho Lammikko and right wing Noel Acciari.
Marchment is the fourth player to get time as the fourth line’s left wing through nine games, joining Ryan Lomberg (one game), Vinnie Hinostroza (four games) and Aleksi Heponiemi (three games).
Through nine games, the quartet has combined for one goal: Heponiemi’s overtime game-winner against the Red Wings on Jan. 30 in his NHL debut.
The Panthers’ three scratches on Sunday: forward Brett Connolly, Hinostroza and defenseman Markus Nutivaara.
This and that
▪ Panthers defenseman Radko Gudas has a team-high 47 hits this season, including 25 over the past three games.
▪ The Panthers only had one power play on Sunday, coming late in the third period when they were already down 3-1. Nine of Florida’s 29 goals this season — 31 percent — have come with the man advantage.
▪ Florida’s eight-game point streak was its second-longest point streak to start a season in franchise history and longest since the institution of a shootout tiebreaker and elimination of ties in 2005-06. The Panthers were the only team in the NHL without a regulation loss before Sunday.
This story was originally published February 7, 2021 at 5:34 PM.
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