Three reasons why this early-season Canada trip is an important one for the Panthers
It was hard not to hear Paul Maurice during the Florida Panthers’ pre-flight practice on Sunday.
After the Panthers ended their homestand with a whimper with back-to-back losses, including a shutout loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, the Panthers’ coach put his players to work to make sure they knew they had to pick up the performance level.
“We all get paid to perform and when you have 16 of 19 guys who played were lousy, the coach has to take some heat for that too,” Maurice said. “I did not like the job that I did. I did not get my job done the other night. … The easiest thing in the world is to say ‘The guys were no good.’ But I get paid for the simplest thing and that is to prepare a hockey team. It’s not that simple, but that’s my job. And I didn’t like my performance, I didn’t like their performance. So we dealt with it today. We didn’t want to just go out there. We put a good day’s work in.’’
Maurice hopes that resonates as the Panthers kick off a key road trip in Canada where they’ll play three games in four days. The trip starts Monday against the Ottawa Senators, continues Tuesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs and ends Thursday against the Montreal Canadiens.
“The main thing was to be sharp and be hard,” center Sam Bennett said. “That was a higher-pace practice than we’ve had. It was just making sure we’re all sharp and prepared for this important road trip.”
While it’s still early in the season, this three-game set could be a potentially important one for Florida long-term.
Here are three reasons why.
All division games
All three games the Panthers will play on this road trip are against Atlantic Division opponents, and any opportunity to get division wins is a big one, especially considering how tight the division is nearly two months into the season.
While the Boston Bruins have a commanding lead on the division with a 14-3-3 record and 31 points, the difference between second and seventh place in the eight-team Atlantic Division entering Monday’s slate of games was just five points.
The Panthers (12-7-1), Detroit Red Wings (11-6-3) and Tampa Bay Lightning (10-6-5) all had 25 points, Toronto (10-6-3) had 23, and Buffalo (9-10-2) and Montreal (9-10-2) each had 20. Ottawa (8-8-0) is in last place with just 16 points but has played anywhere from three to five fewer games than everyone else in the division.
“It’s definitely an important road trip,” Bennett said. “We’ve got divisional games against three strong teams. We’re excited for it, we’re prepared for it and we know how important this is.”
Added Maurice: “This is like a playoff week here. Whether this week happens now or happens in March, it’s the same thing. We’ve liked most of our hockey in the first 20, but we still have a lot to get better at.”
A chance to jumpstart offense
The Panthers had seemed to get into an offensive groove during the early portion of November. The uptick in scoring unsurprisingly correlated with an uptick in wins.
And then the goals seemed to dry up.
Florida has scored two goals or fewer in four of its past five games. Unsurprisingly, they have lost three of those four, including getting shutout at home for the first time in nearly three years in a 3-0 loss to the Jets on Friday.
Outside of a 5-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Nov. 20, Florida scored one goal apiece in losses to the Los Angeles Kings and Bruins and two goals in a win over the Anaheim Ducks in addition to the Winnipeg shutout.
The Panthers’ three games north of the border could potentially help remedy that.
Montreal is allowing the eighth-most goals in the NHL at 3.48 per game played, Toronto is giving up the 11th-most at 3.42 per game, and Ottawa is allowing the 13th-most at 3.38 per game.
Playing at full strength
An assortment of injuries — first defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, then Bennett twice with a leg injury, then captain and top-line center Aleksander Barkov missing three games over two stints — have kept the Panthers from truly showing their full potential.
They managed to not only stay afloat but thrive despite the personnel absences.
Now, they have their first extended chance to show what this team at full strength can accomplish.
“Obviously it was a big challenge for our group early on, and the team did an unbelievable job putting us in position we are right now,” Bennett said. “We’ve got everyone healthy now and everyone’s ready to go. We’re in a good spot and it’s just a matter of bearing down and playing hard every single night.”
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