The gap between the Panthers’ expected, actual results keeps growing after loss in Boston
Paul Maurice and the Florida Panthers often look to the expected goal numbers for validation of the way they’re playing so far in the first half of the 2022-23 NHL season. Even though wins aren’t coming yet, they believe they will because all the underlying numbers — the 5-on-5 goal differential, the possession time, the scoring chances and more — suggest they will.
Even in their 7-3 blowout loss to the Boston Bruins on Monday, the Panthers won in almost every statistical category. Based on expected goals, Florida should have won, with a 3.33-2.6 advantage.
“We put up 39 [shots],” Maurice said Monday. “We had enough to score.”
With every passing day, the urgency will have to build for the Panthers, though. With less than a week until the Christmas break, Florida (15-14-4) sits four points out of postseason position with another tough test coming Wednesday when it hosts the unlikely Stanley Cup-contending New Jersey Devils at 7 p.m. at FLA Live Arena.
The Panthers are certainly outlier in their statistical profile right now, but it won’t matter if they can’t start to pile up some wins eventually to solidify their place in the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
“We want to string a couple together,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “It’s tough. We’re all battling, but it’s just costly errors that happen. Hopefully, we can learn from this and move on.”
The lack of winning streaks with close to half the season done is jarring. With only two games left before Christmas, Florida is guaranteed to go into the five-day holiday break without a single three-game winning streak so far this year. The Panthers have also only won consecutive games once in the last month and only have three winning streaks of any kind this season. They’d need to beat the Devils (21-8-2) on Wednesday in Sunrise and the New York Islanders in Elmont, New York, on Friday just to get a fourth.
Their lack of consistency — both within games and from night to night — is part of how they explain their mediocre record because the totality of their production does not suggest they should be a below-average team.
Florida’s 5-on-5 goal differential of plus-14 was tied for fifth best in the NHL entering Tuesday and every other team in the top 12 of goal differential owned a points percentage of at least .600.
The Panthers’ is .510.
Even the all-strengths production isn’t bad enough for Florida to be this underwhelming. The Panthers’ all-strengths expected goals percentage is 54.80 percent — meaning, based on shot totals and the location of shots, Florida is expected to score almost 55 percent of all goals throughout the course of a season — which was fourth best in the league entering Tuesday. Again, the top 10 in expected goals percentage—except the Panthers—have a points percentage of at least .600 and everyone else in the top 14 has at least a .545 points percentage.
Porous goaltending hasn’t helped. Both Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight rank in the bottom 15 in save percentage among goaltenders with at least 15 appearances this year.
Florida is getting some positive developments, though. Defenseman Radko Gudas should return from injured reserve this week after he was a game-time decision to play against the Bruins and center Anton Lundell finally returned to the ice for the Panthers’ morning skate in Boston, participating in a non-contact jersey after missing nearly three weeks with an upper-body injury.
Florida also avoided the worst-case scenario when star center Aleksander Barkov appeared to injure his knee Saturday in New Jersey and is “day to day,” Maurice said.
There are real reasons to believe a turnaround lies ahead for the Panthers, but it will have to start with better performances on a nightly basis. It’s not all out of Florida’s control.
For evidence, look to Monday: The Panthers fell behind 4-0 with an awful 10-minute stretch, then roared back with three goals in six minutes before fading down the stretch.
Those six minutes were a reminder of what the Panthers can be. The rest of the game, however, is why they aren’t.
“The shift-by-shift consistency in our game,” Maurice said, when asked what Florida needs, “and confidence that’s built through it.”
