Panthers are first in the NHL to clinch a playoff spot, but ‘have eyes on bigger prizes’
The Florida Panthers have known for a long time they would be going to the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s why they always talk about the “bigger prizes” rather than lingering too much the many milestones they’ve hit along the way this year.
They have spent most of the season as the top team in the Eastern Conference and virtually the entire year in first place in the Atlantic Division. Their goal is the Stanley Cup — anything less will leave them disappointed when the season ends — so there was no extra celebration on the ice when the Panthers finished off their 5-3 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday to become the first team this season to clinch a postseason spot.
“We have eyes on bigger prizes,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said. “We still have work to do.”
It’s still not something Florida (48-15-6) takes for granted, especially given where this team was not so long ago. For only the eighth time in their 29-year history, the Panthers are headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs and they did it by setting a single-season franchise record for wins and getting a game-tying goal from Jonathan Huberdeau, which gave him a single-season franchise-record 97th point.
Now comes the hard part. For the rest of April, Florida will try to hold on to its nine-point lead in the Atlantic, fend off the Carolina Hurricanes for the top spot in the East and chase down the Colorado Avalanche to win the Presidents’ Trophy, and then, in May, they’ll begin their quest for the Cup.
“To finish first,” Huberdeau said, “that’s what we want to do.”
The Panthers, who now lead the Hurricanes by four points and trail the Avalanche by two, have not won a postseason series since the they reached the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals in only their third season of existence. It was Florida’s first ever trip to the Cup playoffs and the Panthers have gone one-and-done in each of their six trips since — including a six-game exit in the qualifying round of the expanded 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs — while winning just nine games total.
Now Florida will play in the postseason for the third straight year after taking the eventual-champion Tampa Bay Lightning to six games in the first round of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs. Before this three-year run, the Panthers had only reached the playoffs once since Huberdeau — the oldest of the core trio of Huberdeau, star center Aleksander Barkov and star defenseman Aaron Ekblad — debuted in the 2012-13 NHL season.
“Thinking back to the beginning of my career, I didn’t make the playoffs a whole lot, so this is where everyone wants to be,” Barkov said. “Everyone wants to make playoffs every year.”
Florida has never had a team quite like this one. In the last week, the Panthers have set single-season franchise records for wins, home wins and goals and they can clinch the single-season franchise record for points Tuesday when they return to Sunrise to face the Toronto Maple Leafs. If it can stay near its current pace of 4.15 goals per game, Florida will be the first team to average at least four goals per game since the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1995-96 NHL season.
On Thursday, Huberdeau set an NHL record for assists in a season by a left wing and then he broke star center Aleksander Barkov’s franchise record for points in a single season in the second period Sunday. On Saturday, the Panthers pulled off a historic four-goal, third-period comeback — only the 20th in league history — to tie a single-season NHL record for three-goal comebacks and crack the 100-point mark for only the second time in team history.
They actually needed another come-from-behind win Sunday — their 22nd of the season — to beat the Sabres (25-34-11) in Buffalo. Florida fell behind 1-0 in the first period, then ripped off four in a row to fend off the Sabres, even after a couple third-period goals energized the crowd of 11,787 at the KeyBank Center.
The comeback began with Huberdeau. The All-Star winger, who leads the NHL with 73 assists, skated to the middle of the offensive zone after a giveaway by Buffalo let Claude Giroux carry the puck down the right-hand boards with little resistance. He skated toward the net and drew a defender his way, then made a centering pass to tee up Huberdeau for a game-tying one-timer with 13:42 left in the second.
Florida never trailed again. Rookie center Anton Lundell scored with 4:05 left in the second period to put the Panthers ahead for good and Anthony Duclair scored his first 1:06 later to give Florida a two-goal cushion. The winger then notched up with the game-winning goal in the first minute of the third period, putting Florida up 4-1.
With the league’s most prolific offense and a middle-of-the-pack defense, the Panthers are a clear Cup contender and, especially lately, imperfect. Florida has given up at least three goals in six of its last seven games, including six Saturday in their astonishing comeback against the New Jersey Devils.
With 13 games left, the Panthers will strive for perfection because it’s what they’ll need if they want to guarantee they’re playing into the summer.
“With all the goal scoring, it’s led to some habits we’ve got to clean up a little bit here going forward,” Brunette said. “You just want to make sure we’re playing our best hockey. We’ve been a little sporadic here.”
This story was originally published April 3, 2022 at 3:39 PM.
