First-place Panthers hit a rare offensive rough patch over the weekend. What went wrong?
The Florida Panthers got by without Aleksander Barkov for the better part of a month by leaning on their depth, some unlikely contributions from their third line and a string of monster performances from some of their other star players.
Over the weekend, Barkov’s injury — and Anthony Duclair’s — seemed to finally catch up to the Panthers.
Florida had already been struggling on the road this season and with two of its first-line forwards sidelined, it struggled offensively through the final two games of its latest trip through the Western Conference.
“The last two games,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said, “I feel we’ve been not quite as resilient.”
The first-place Panthers (18-5-4) managed just 42 shot attempts Friday in a win against the league-worst Arizona Coyotes — their lowest total of the season — and they followed up with only 60, their 10th fewest of the season, in their 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalance on Sunday at Ball Arena.
It was the worst two-game stretch of the season for the team averaging the most shots on goal per game and the second-most goals, and it could have been worse if not for the “good desperation hockey,” as forward Joe Thornton put it, that Florida played in the last four minutes against the Avalanche. The Panthers had 13 shot attempts in the final 3:39 in Colorado.
Florida still managed to score five goals in the two games, but they mostly came in bursts of spectacular play — the Panthers scored twice in 10 seconds in the second period Friday and twice in 2:34 in the third period Sunday — rather than sustained excellence.
Star defenseman Aaron Ekblad likes to say the Panthers “come in waves,” and they lost part of their identity during the weekend. While it had two of its best nine games of the year in terms of shot attempts allowed, Florida didn’t turn defense into sustained offense like it usually does.
“I don’t think we were particularly sharp with the puck. I thought we managed it fine and we battled, I just didn’t think we were strong enough on the puck in the offensive zone to really sustain a lot of offense, so we didn’t have the puck as much as we’d like,” Brunette said. “That’s a big part of our game. When we have the puck, we want to keep it. When we don’t, we want to get it back quick. I thought we got it back quick, we just didn’t keep it long enough.”
Ultimately, these two have just been outliers for the Panthers this year. They still lead the NHL in points percentage and have arguably the best offense in the league, they just didn’t play to their usual standard over the weekend, as they only outshot the Avalanche with one of their four most frequently used lines on the ice. The Panthers got outshot 8-1 with their makeshift first line, with center Anton Lundell flanked by wingers Carter Verhaeghe and Owen Tippett, on the ice.
At some point soon, Barkov and Duclair should be be back, though. Barkov came from a left knee injury Tuesday only to sustain another undisclosed injury and miss the next two games. Duclair has now missed eight straight games with a lower-body injury, although he skated at practice Saturday in Denver and could reasonably be back as soon as Tuesday, when Florida opens a quick two-game homestand at FLA Live Arena against the Ottawa Senators at 7 p.m. in Sunrise.
The Panthers have been the best team at home all season and a game against the Senators (8-16-1) is a chance to get right after an uncharacteristic weekend away from Florida.
