After career night in Florida Panthers loss, Evan Rodrigues keeps things in perspective
Even after a career game in his second appearance with the Florida Panthers, Evan Rodrigues understood he needed to put things in perspective.
“Still would like to get a win before a goal,” Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues tallied a career-high four points on Saturday, factoring into all of Florida’s goals, but it wasn’t enough in the Panthers’ 6-4 loss to the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre.
The loss has the Panthers at 0-2-0 for the first time to begin a season since the 2010-11 season.
Rodrigues gave Florida its first lead of the season when he scored from in front of the net 25 seconds into the second period.
But the lead didn’t last, with the Jets tying the game 10 seconds later, adding two more goals over the next nine-plus minutes and then tallying a short-handed goal late in the third period to go up 5-2 with 5:43 left to play.
Florida attempted to rally back, with Carter Verhaeghe and Rodrigues scoring within 65 seconds of each other to push Florida within a goal with 2:24 left but couldn’t complete the comeback.
“It’s nice to know we’re not gonna just roll over and give up games,” Rodrigues said, “but I think as a whole [our performance] wasn’t good enough. I thought we played really well against Minnesota. and I thought as a team we thought it was going to be easy [against Winnipeg]. To be successful, we have to play like we did against Minnesota. I don’t think we did.”
Despite the loss, Rodrigues’ performance Saturday is what the Panthers were hoping to get out of him when they signed him to a four-year, $12 million deal this offseason. The 30-year-old winger has the ability to be a top-end scorer despite never logging more than 19 goals or 43 points in a season.
Coach Paul Maurice immediately put Rodrigues on Florida’s top line with Aleksander Barkov and Verhaeghe, filling the right wing spot that opened up after the team traded Anthony Duclair to the San Jose Sharks. Rodrigues is also on Florida’s top power-play unit.
“We need guys on the wings [on Barkov’s line] that will shoot the puck and that is why it’s sometimes a challenge for young players to come and play with a player like that,” Maurice said. “Because they are constantly trying to give the puck to Barkov and what he wants to do is give it back and put you in a hole to finish. Evan’s got some NHL experience and we think he will be a shooter there.”
In addition to his two goals, Rodrigues had the primary assist on a Sam Reinhart power-play goal in the first period and the secondary assist on Verhaeghe’s third-period goal. Prior to Saturday, Rodrigues’ career high for points in a game was three, done three times all during the 2021-22 season with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
He is the first player in Panthers history to have a four-point game in one of his first two games with the franchise. Only five players total have scored four total points within their first two games with Florida: Todd Bertuzzi in 2006-07, Jonathan Marchessault in 2016-17, Patric Hornqvist and Claude Giroux in 2021-22 (Giroux is the only midseason acquisition to accomplish the feat with Florida), and now Rodriguez.
“He has a little bit of everything in his game,” Barkov said during training camp. “He can play defensively, offensively, make plays, score goals, so those guys don’t grow on every tree. It’s great to have a guy like that on your line.”
.JPG)