Florida Panthers got ‘comfortable’ at home. Can they get back on track to end homestand?
Home ice had been so nice for the Florida Panthers. They won 23 of their first 26 games in Sunrise this season, a large reason for their early ascension in the NHL standings. Scoring happened frequently. “We want 10” chants followed from fans attending at FLA Live Arena.
And then, the recent slide happened.
In a span of five days, the Panthers’ loss count at FLA Live Arena doubled. They lost 6-4 to the Nashville Predators, 6-3 to the Columbus Blue Jackets and 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers in their first home games since returning from the All-Star Break.
“We probably got a little comfortable [playing at home],” Panthers All-Star winger Jonathan Huberdeau said. “That just can’t happen because it’s gonna get harder and harder toward the end of the season and the playoffs. We’ve just got to battle. It’s important to us.”
After a four-day stretch without a game since the Edmonton loss, the Panthers (35-13-5) will be back on home ice at 7 p.m. Thursday against the Ottawa Senators (19-28-5) before closing this five-game homestand against the Detroit Red Wings at 6 p.m. Saturday.
It’s their first opportunity to reset and show they can play to the standard they have set at home this season.
And a chance to show that they can use this recent low point (by the Panthers’ standards this season) and figure out how to improve as a result.
“There’s a little bit of that resilience and that grit that needs to be formed and built over time,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’ve been kind of on the very fortunate side at times when we haven’t played our very best and we got bailed out by goaltending or maybe we had a hot line. There’s going to be times in the year when things don’t always go your way, and I think it’s imperative that you get through those and you show your resilience and grit through those things as the season goes on.”
While the Panthers have gone through their share of difficulties this year — highlighted by a coaching change and an injury to captain Aleksander Barkov that resulted in him missing more than a dozen games — the problems rarely showed up in the win-loss column.
This is just the second time this season that Florida has lost three consecutive games in regulation and the first time all three of those games came on home ice. The other stretch came Dec. 12-16 with a road loss to the Colorado Avalanche and home losses to Ottawa and the Los Angeles Kings — the final game of which the Panthers were missing seven players due to COVID-19 protocols plus Barkov due to injury and called up four players from their minor-league affiliate just to be able to field an almost-whole roster.
“We just need to grow together,” rookie forward Anton Lundell said. “Face this time and I think it will make us stronger in the end.”
That starts Thursday against a Senators team that is 3-6-1 in its last 10 games and is one of the bottom five teams in the Eastern Conference but also has an 8-2 win in Sunrise to its name on Dec. 14 in the middle of that first three-game losing skid.
“It doesn’t matter really the teams coming in. We’ve just got to be way better,” said Huberdeau, who entered Wednesday leading the NHL with 57 assists and is third in the league with 75 total points. “We’re a good team. We just have to play a little bit more intense and with better execution.”
The newest Panther
The Panthers on Tuesday signed 28-year-old defenseman Petteri Lindbohm to a one-year deal, adding serviceable depth to their blue-liners.
Lindbohm, who has played in 40 career NHL games, was part of Finland’s gold medal team at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. He recorded two assists over Finland’s six games.
“He plays a good two-way game,” said Lundell, who was teammates with Lindbohm at the 2021 IIHF World Championships. “He’s really strong, good in the D zone and he can make some plays, too.”
Lindbohm is not on the roster yet; Brunette said he still has “some hurdles to cross” but the hope is that he’ll be in Sunrise “at some time through the weekend.”
“The plan is for him to be here,” Brunette said, “and we’ll see how he does.”
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