Another night, another comeback for Panthers, but concern is mounting as playoffs near
In every one of their four games in the last week, the Florida Panthers have fallen behind.
Every time, they’ve come back to win.
Until the end, the Panthers’ latest comeback wasn’t quite as dramatic as their last, when they stormed back from four down to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in overtime. On Friday, Florida was only down by two and was tied up by the end of the second period, and then it took until the final minute to win. With 37.3 seconds left, Sam Bennett finished a back-door feed from Aleksander Barkov and the Panthers regrouped from a lifeless first period to beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-3, in Sunrise.
“The start wasn’t ideal. We kind of felt our way through the first period, but it’s going to happen,” interim coach Andrew Brunette said. “We started taking over in the second.”
Florida (50-14-6) now has 50 wins this season and 25 have been come-from-behind victories. The nickname “Comeback Cats” is well-earned for this group — for good and ill.
The good is evident just by looking at the standings: The Panthers have an eight-point lead in the Eastern Conference and an six-point lead in the Atlantic Division, and their win Friday, for the moment, moved them into a tie with the Colorado Avalanche in the race for the Presidents’ Trophy. Comebacks, by their very nature, require some modicum of luck, but Florida doesn’t often win with it — the Panthers lead the NHL in goal differential and are on pace to be the league’s highest scoring team since the 1995-96 NHL season.
The bad has been obvious this week and Florida has tried to make it the focus: Only two teams in NHL history had ever had a pair of four-goal comebacks in the same season before the Panthers pulled it off twice in the first week. Florida also is the first team in NHL history with five three-goal comebacks in a single season — history is not on the Panthers’ side, especially once they get to the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs and have to face stiffer competition than the Sabres.
“If that happens in the playoffs,” right wing Patric Hornqvist said, “we lose.”
Said Brunette: “It’s starting to get a little concerning.”
After Florida pulled off the second of its two four-goal comebacks Tuesday against the Maple Leafs, Barkov said, “it’s time to learn.” The Panthers rank in the top 10 in every major offensive category and most major defensive categories, yet they play with a strangely thin margin of error for such a dominant team because they’ve trailed at some point in the vast majority of their games this season.
At the first intermission Friday, they were down 3-1 and their ugly start meant they wound up in a three-period battle with one of the worst teams in the league.
In the first period, Buffalo (26-36-11) jumped ahead 1-0 on a power-play goal by Sabres winger Victor Olofsson, then went up 2-1 as Mark Pysyk, Buffalo’s offensive-minded defenseman and a former fan favorite in South Florida, shot from the point and scored when defenseman MacKenzie Weegar inadvertently deflected a puck past Sergei Bobrovsky. The Sabres’ third goal came after a defensive-zone giveaway by the Panthers and prompted a smattering of boos from the 17,728 inside FLA Live Arena.
Bobrovsky, who started each of the four-goal comebacks and got benched before the start of the third period both times, gave up three goals on the first eight shots he faced, then stopped the next 14. Still, the star goaltender has given up at least three goals in seven of his last eight starts.
At the time, Buffalo was outplaying — or at least playing even with — the Stanley Cup contenders. Florida had a 13-12 edge in shots on goal and 12-9 lead in scoring chances, but the Sabres had the advantage in total shot attempts and high-danger chances were even.
Although they dominated the final two periods, the Panthers were tied 3-3 with Buffalo in the final minute. Their early two-goal hole meant their 30-10 advantage in shots and 28-5 advantage in scoring chances in the final two periods weren’t enough to ever bury the Sabres. They needed some last-minute heroics from two of the best forwards in the league just to avoid overtime.
With less than 45 seconds left, Barkov hustled to the blue line to keep a puck in the zone and started a game-winning passing sequence. He found Jonathan Huberdeau in the center of the ice, but the All-Star left wing slipped and had to make a pass back to defenseman Brandon Montour at the point. Barkov charged to the net and Montour found him with a cross-ice pass, then Barkov made one more to Bennett on the right doorstep to tap in a game-winning goal.
Even with all the early deficits, Florida has won five in a row and its lead in the East is growing.
“It’s kind of been the same story the last couple games.We’re not thrilled with our starts,” Bennett said, “but, for sure, our team has all the belief in each other and in our group to dial it in when we need to.”
Up next
The Panthers are right back in action Saturday for a quick one-game road trip against the Nashville Predators at 6 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena.
The Predators (41-25-4) are one of only four teams with a winning record left on Florida’s schedule and the Panthers won’t play another until April 23, when they’ll begin a three-game stretch against the division-rival Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins.
Rookie goaltender Spencer Knight will likely be in goal for Florida in Nashville after Bobrovsky started the first end of the back-to-back set Friday.
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 9:33 PM.
