Inside Sam Reinhart’s recent hot streak for the Florida Panthers. Plus injury updates
For the first 12 games of the season, Sam Reinhart had created an abundance of scoring chances but had almost nothing to show for it. The Florida Panthers forward, coming off a career year across the board for scoring (33 goals, 49 assists, 82 points), had just three assists in that span despite underlying metrics suggesting he should have had close to a handful of goals based on the opportunities he was generating.
“He had an awful lot of chances to score [early in the season] and couldn’t find the back of the net,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “You keep telling him to hang with it.”
And then he jammed a loose puck into the back of the net early in the third period for a game-tying goal against the Anaheim Ducks on Nov. 6. And then, with just under a second left on the clock in that same game, he skated down open ice and pushed a puck into an empty net with force to seal the Panthers’ 5-3 road win.
Points have come for Reinhart in bunches since then.
Entering Wednesday’s home game against the New Jersey Devils, Reinhart has logged 21 points in his past 21 games starting with that two-goal outing in Anaheim. He has 12 goals and nine assists on 63 shots on goal and has eight points — five goals, three assists — over his past four games.
“When you’re creating so much to start the year and it’s not going in, it’s tough to keep that confidence up even though it seemed like we were generating some offense,” Reinhart said after morning skate Wednesday. “It’s nice to see pucks go in. It’s nice to be getting rewarded. Hope we can continue that.”
Reinhart’s 12 goals rank third on the team, trailing only Carter Verhaeghe (17) and Matthew Tkachuk (14).
And Reinhart continues to generate chances.
According to the advanced hockey statistics website Natural Stat Trick, Reinhart’s 14.25 individual expected goals created rank 19th in the NHL and second on the team behind only Tkachuk (15.64). Reinhart is also second on the team in overall scoring chances (120) and high-danger chances (62), again trailing only Tkachuk among Panthers players (131 scoring chances, 67 high-danger chances).
Reinhart’s scoring run began once Maurice put him on the same line as center Anton Lundell. The two built chemistry last season during the Panthers’ run to the Presidents’ Trophy, with Florida outscoring opponents 31-17 when the two were on the ice together in 5-on-5 situations.
“The day he went back with Lundell,” Maurice said, “his game changed.”
Reinhart, in turn, has now had three separate point streaks of at least three games. He scored power play goals in three consecutive games from Nov. 15-Nov. 19, had a five-game point streak from Nov. 23-Dec. 1 and is on his current four-game streak that includes five goals — four of which have come at even strength.
The active streak might be the most important of them because it has come without Lundell, who hasn’t played since Dec. 1 while dealing with both an upper-body injury and an illness. Reinhart has had to adapt to bouncing around with different linemates as Florida’s forward group has been hit hard by injuries and illness. The team is currently without captain Aleksander Barkov, who is missing his second consecutive game with a lower-body injury and his ninth overall. Chris Tierney will miss his third consecutive game. Verhaeghe and Matthew Tkachuk have also missed games recently.
“You look at our lineup and everybody’s kind of been juggling around,” Reinhart said. “You’ve got to be able to find your game with a number of people. It’s obviously something we’ve had no choice. Paul came in and wanted a little bit of stability; obviously, it doesn’t go that way all the time.”
Some good news: Lundell is returning to the Panthers’ lineup on Wednesday and is being reunited with Reinhart.
“I’m hoping,” Maurice said, “that [Reinhart] can bring the confidence that he has now because he is scoring goals and the comfort of playing with Lundy will help Lundy as well and they can fit right back into where they were.”
More injury updates
While Lundell is returning, Maurice said he doesn’t anticipate any of the Panthers’ injured players returning before the Christmas break. That means the most likely earliest return for Barkov, Tierney and defenseman Radko Gudas is Dec. 29 against the Montreal Canadiens.
Veteran winger Patric Hornqvist (concussion) is eligible to come off long-term injured reserve at that time as well, but Maurice cautioned that the 35-year-old’s injury is “potentially far more long-term.”
“It’s a significant injury,” Maurice said, adding that this is Hornqvist’s second concussion of the season. “This one is more serious. He’s not 25 anymore. It’s a big number of concussions [throughout his career]. Those are the conversations we’re having.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2022 at 12:32 PM.
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